Unity
by Awska
Summary: Victory is only the beginning. Shepard and Liara, their friends, families, allies, enemies, and the fate of the united galaxy after the end of the Reaper War. Gritty, sciency, often funny or teary, sometimes sexy. …And always hopeful.
1. Introduction, Codex, and Characters

**Welcome!**

You can click 'Next' to start reading the story right after this little introduction!

Below the intro there's some optional info in the form of a small codex and a listing of characters, both organized by chapter. It is strictly extra and isn't needed to read the story…but should you want to know more about a concept mentioned, or find the need to look a character up as you read, you can come back here to use those two resources. Or you can go through them beforehand, if you like.

The story starts in the middle of the ME3 finale. Like a good Infiltrator I use as much of the provided cover as I can, sneaking in and fixing the endings with the fewest changes possible. The game's confines are escaped in Chapter 3.

The sections overlapping with the game are told from non-Shepard POVs to provide a new perspective.

We move from the chaos of the final moments of the Reaper War through the emerging understanding, recovery, and rebuilding of the aftermath, eventually into the new, uncertain future and the challenges and adventure that it holds.

(In fact, the beginning of the story reflects that chaos a little. Things start settling down around the tenth chapter.)

All OCs are strictly side characters supporting the story. I'll be sure to let you know if this ever changes. The cast is fairly large, but don't worry…you'll get to know the important people along the way (and you always have the character listing, below, to refer to).

Of Eevy Shepard, perhaps it'll suffice for now to say that she's a paragade tending toward the good, fairly well-adjusted for what she's gone through, and head over heels for Liara.

Content will be M/MA, sciency, gritty, often funny or teary, and sometimes sexy.

I love any and all feedback and interaction from you guys! Anything you can tell me, be it encouragement, critique, enjoyment, displeasure, short notes on individual chapters as you go or an in-depth literary critique at the end, or just your impression of a scene or characterization, questions, clarification requests…please leave reviews, send PMs, talk to me on Facebook or Twitter… Comments on the earlier chapters are valuable, too.

Don't hesitate to give critique if you find any cause. I will love you for it, I promise :)

For optional reading, there's a short companion text in my profile on the asari who, in my world, are not merely blue human females. Don't worry, I won't contradict lore, just enhance it a bit.

In addition to the above, there's also a companion to this particular text, called Coherence (also in profile). It expands on various things in Unity, but it is highly recommended you're caught up on Unity before reading it.

With that, I hope you enjoy reading Unity as much as I enjoy writing it! —A

* * *

Disclaimer: Mass Effect and its characters conceived and owned by BioWare.

* * *

**Codex**

This is all extra or background information. Reading this is not necessary for following the story, I just elaborate on various terms and concepts for those interested. If there's anything in the story that you think should have a glossary entry and doesn't, let me know!

General stuff:

**Time:** The Galactic Time standard is, essentially, the same amount of time as 24 Earth hours divided into 20 'hours' of 100 'minutes' instead—this is how the Citadel counts time—but for simplicity, I will present all times in Earth equivalents so that 10 minutes means what you think it means.

**Measurements:** I use the metric system for the measures that appear. In case you want to convert to imperial, here're a couple general rules. Please let me know if it's too confusing… I can add A/N's as necessary.

**Meter (m)**: roughly equivalent to a yard, or 3 feet. Just multiply all meters by 3 and you're close enough in feet.  
**Kilometer (km)**: 1000 meters, or ~3000 feet. 2/3 of a mile (1 mi = 1.6 km).

Rarer use:

**Centimeter (cm)**: A little less than half an inch. (1 meter = 100 centimeters.)  
**Kilogram (kg)**: About 2 pounds (lbs).  
**Liter (l)**: About a quarter gallon.  
**Celsius (C)**: Water freezes at 0 celsius, and boils at 100. Body temperature is 37 (35 is hypothermia, 40 is a high fever). Outdoors, 10 degrees is chilly, 20 is warm, 30 is hot. A reasonable rule of thumb is celsius times 2 plus 30.

Chapter 1:

_ID chips_ are carried by all persons, and can typically be scanned from a small distance. Different groups, be they nations, corporations, militaries, usually have encrypted extra information that can be viewed given sufficient permissions, e.g. officers for their subordinates but not the other way around.

_Aurals_ are speakers usually implanted in the ear canal, either on the surface or subdermally. More advanced models actually tie directly into the nerves. Some prefer to use nonintegrated aurals, small plugs that can be taken in and out. Aurals are nearly always connected to both the user's omnitool, the translator, and any other comms equipment they may have.

Chapter 2:

_HI_ or _holographic interface_ is the most typical computer interface in use. Instead of a physical monitor or keyboard or other peripheral devices, a hologram was projected to function both as the interface for input by the user in various situational forms as well as output. The classic interface is typically yellowish-orange but can of course display full-color output.

_'Ions'_ is a general term for non-FTL/non-combat propulsion. It's almost always an inaccurate designation as real ion drives are rarely used in any spacefaring vessels, and instead just works as a convenient shorthand to differentiate between the lower and higher thrust modes. The _Normandy_ is a special case as the Tantalus core gives it a special, relatively fast and quiet operating mode that doesn't use the main engines.

Chapter 3:

_Asari naming conventions_ are fairly simple. They have a given name, and a surname that follows matriarchal lineage. The T' or Te-prefix indicates that the family is—at least historically—one of regional leadership. For example the T'Sonis are originally the leaders of the Soni region clans (Soni, named after the river around which it sits, is a département of Serra, one of the nine semi-autonomous republics of Thessia.) Loak, on the other hand, is not an actual region: it's an area of the Purple Sea known for its capricious humors—not unlike the Bermuda Triangle on Earth.

Additionally, there are a few honorifics in use. While maidens and matrons are simply known by their name, matriarchs are addressed by the honorific Matriarch and their _first_ name alone—the surname is only used in official paperwork and similar situations. Other honorifics follow the same convention, and include Justicar, Ambassador, and Councilor. Honorifics, once earned, are never lost (unless the person is e.g. stripped of rank due to some crime). Even if an Ambassador eventually gives up her post, she will still be known as Ambassador—although some may choose to return to Matriarch.

Chapter 5:

_A Rim mission_ is a scientific Council task force of a few ships sent to map the unconnected systems close to the rim of the galaxy. They last a few years and typically involve a 'dark' period, with the task force out of reach of all reasonably fast communication without access to FTL buoys. QEC is still too expensive to be an option.

Chapter 6:

_Comm networks_ are an integral part of warfare. Unlike times in the past, lack of communications is usually not a significant problem for any military (or other) operation. Certainly, there are jamming and interference issues, and orbital communications are still slightly harder, but by and large the issue is rather the **abundance** of communications. Managing the complexity of information flow and communication hierarchy is a critical strategic asset.

The typical comm network consists of an arbitrary number of pre-designated and ad-hoc channels, with any number of users on any number of channels. The military networks typically use rank to limit privileges such as setting up and maintaining private channels, adding users to channels, joining channels with only receive access, and so on. Channels may exist in some central location or, more commonly e.g. ad-hoc channels are just created on a user's omni. The channels may exist essentially anywhere in the galaxy as long as they are properly created and connected inside a supernetwork.

Main interface is voice/video chat, but all speech is also transcribed to text and optionally recorded on the fly so that users can monitor multiple channels. Networks typically integrate with omnis, armor and so on, so for example name and location can be retrieved automatically, or video can be streamed, data shared, and so on. Even the cheapest suits have some type of VIs handling preferences, trigger phrases and so on. The more expensive the setup, the more elaborate the VI processing gets.

As always, the interface can be either purely voice including voice commands ("Comm: connect some channel'), or the omni or other computer or device (poke the button that says "connect"), with i/o easily redirected to e.g. a helmet HUD, or something more sophisticated like an eye movement tracking UI, usually called a 'retinal'. Command modes can of course also be mixed arbitrarily.

Chapter 7:

_A creche_ is the common name for a medical transport device used especially in space rescues. In simplest terms, it's a coffin-like box in which an injured person can be placed for transportation. It's naturally completely space-capable, and it has several medical capabilities, both for monitoring the status of the patient as well as administering medi-gel, blood, drugs, even ventilation and cardiac or brain stimulation for certain types of injuries. One of the more important features is that it tries to stabilize the patient by subduing vital functions. For example, a human heartbeat can drop as low as 5 beats per minute, the body temperature drops to below 30 degrees Celsius, and the muscles are relaxed by means appropriate to the species. This 'stasis' is very useful in certain types of injuries, especially heavy bleeding, or swelling in the brain. Unfortunately it's not a magic solution, and due to the nature of the 'stasis' it's in fact unhelpful in many serious conditions. Creches are manufactured by two asari corporations and both models are capable of containing any of the Citadel species with the exception of elcor. They are impractically expensive to deploy in great numbers: on average it could be guessed that there's one creche per 50-60 patients in an average Search & Rescue unit's supplies.

Chapter 10:

_Fleet strength_ in the Battle for Earth is one of the most misrepresented numbers in the retellings of the battle. It of course sounds more heroic to say that 3000 brave cruisers took on the entire Reaper fleet, but in reality the approximately 2000 Reaper capital ships and some 15000 Reaper destroyers (of whom around 600 and 7000 respectively actually took part in the battle in space) would of course have completely decimated only 3000 ships. The actual number of classified ships (Dreadnoughts, Carriers, Cruisers, and Frigates) between all of the allied fleets was around 16000. In addition to these, there were numerous Fighters as well as a vast number of nonclassified transport- and civilian ships repurposed for the fight. There were also some smaller contingency patrols such as the one tasked to Charon, as well as a fleet of hospital ships stationed just outside the Sol system and ordered to re-enter the system only in the case of victory. Even this vast number of vessels would only have been able to hold off the Reaper forces for a total of 4-5 hours before defeat had the Crucible not been constructed.

_Hospital fleet_ is a collection of ships intended primarily for treating and transporting wounded soldiers. The System Alliance, for example, had two hospital ships attached to each of its fleets, each ship with a crew and medical staff of around 3000 with beds for around 5000. For the Battle for Earth, all the different fleets pooled their hospital ships under the command of ChiefMed Nitaros, the respected CMO of the turian hierarchy's military medical care. The fleet jumped in to Sol along with the rest of the allied fleets, but immediately withdrew beyond the termination barrier 'outside' the system and travelled closer toward Earth thus hidden, waiting to emerge in the event of victory. The remaining Systems Alliance hospital ships are named after rivers for the traditional healing properties of water: SSMV's _Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi, Congo, Amur, Mekong, Ob, Tiber, Danube, Parana, Volga, Murray-Darling, Niger, Seine,_ and _Ganges_.

Chapter 11:

_QEC_ or Quantum Entanglement Communication is a means of communication based on entangled quantum pairs. Whenever one changes state, the other does the same regardless of where and how far it is (some supporting processes are required for galaxy-wide range). The bandwidth is not particularly wide, since effectively the data transfer happens one quantum bit (qubit) at a time, but it is sufficient for a limited form of videoconferencing. The technology is quite expensive both in credits and power required to run it, and is reserved almost exclusively for military use. Each of the council species only has a handful of pairs, usually housed on the Citadel and their more important worlds as well as a few select ships. The _Normandy_ was an exceptional case: it had a lavish array of four entangled pair-ends, one to Earth, one to Admiral Hackett's _Tai Shan_, one to the Citadel, and one originally to the Cerberus base, but now temporarily relocated to the _Fuji_ in its deactivated state.

Chapter 13:

_Cherenkov event_ refers to a detectable trace of FTL Cherenkov radiation, released as a byproduct of a collapsing FTL tunnel. Normal Cherenkov radiation is, simply put, electromagnetic radiation released when a charged particle travels through a medium faster than the speed of light in that medium, and it's not dangerous. FTL Cherenkov, on the other hand, is caused by the regular space being the slower medium, and as the event enters the regular space, the radiation actually becomes ionizing – which is to say, hazardous. While the principle is the same, due to the vastly different result the term is a bit of a misnomer. An FTL Cherenkov field only exists in the regular space, and its size is quadratically relative to the multiple of c the tunnel was supporting, but typically even the smallest fields are shaped roughly like a pear, with the sphere centered around the actual collapse and the protrusion toward the exit direction. The field is hazardous to life for only a few hours in vacuum, and it can be detected for a period reaching up to a week depending on sophistication of equipment. The radiation levels inside ships with normal shielding are estimated to reach as high as 60-70 grays (by and large, anything above 30 Gy is lethal in a matter of hours regardless of treatment).

_Phonetic writing_ was one of the things changed during the formation of the Systems Alliance. Where other nations agreed to use English as the official language – it was already _de facto_ that – they did succeed in pushing through the demand to move from the archaic and error-prone spelling into transliterating English phonetically so that each sound was represented by a specific glyph rather than the reader having to guess or know how a certain combination of letters was to be pronounced in a particular case. This practice has been universally adopted in the following decades _(A/N: don't worry, I'll still write everything in the archaic style ;)_

Chapter 14:

_Datapads_ come broadly in two flavors: normal, and restricted. A regular datapad is more or less an extension of or attachment to the omnitool, better-suited for certain tasks. They're fairly powerful computers in their own right, but usually only come with limited HI. Nearly everyone has an omni, but datapads are an alternative for those who for one reason or another do not have one. Restricted datapads, the more common variety (why _they_ are not 'regular' is a mystery), have only physical connections, and they are typically heavily encrypted. Pads like these can be used to give someone temporary access to information that must not be exposed to any external connections. In a more relaxed environment, any kind of information exchange is typically done using the omnitool through either local or remote transfer directly to the other party, naturally encrypted to discourage the most casual eavesdroppers.

Chapter 17:

_Disabled mass relays_: when the Crucible fired, the energy disabled the first relay it traveled through, Charon in the Sol system, Local Cluster (or Earth Cluster as it's also known). In addition to it, several other relays were also affected. While the exact routes that the energy pulse took to reach all known systems — as far as anyone can tell — are still being resolved due to the speed of the event, there is a clear pattern in the relays where operation was disrupted. Starting from Earth Cluster, there is a spiraling path against the direction of galactic spin (or, if you will, 'counterclockwise' if you look at a typical 2D map). The list of affected relays is, in order: Arcturus, Horsehead (Noveria), Petra (Grissom Academy), Shadow Sea (Horizon), Hawking Eta, Ninmah (Rachni space), Pangea (Ilos), Pylos, Rosetta Nebula, Sigurd's Cradle (Sanctum, Watson), Omega, Hourglass Nebula (Hagalaz), and Eagle Nebula (Korlus, Anhur). In addition to these, it is likely that some dormant or unknown relays were affected along the route. Of these, several only exhibited instability rather than 'turned off' completely, and they have returned to what seems to be full operational status: Shadow Sea, Rosetta Nebula, Omega, Sigurd's Cradle. Horsehead and Eagle Nebula remain unstable, but some transmissions are getting through in both directions. What caused the differing effects is unknown at this time, though there is some evidence that each of the less-affected ones may have had a craft in transit at the moment the pulse reached it.

Chapter 32:

_Languages and translators_. Languages are naturally very varied in the galaxy. Most species still have multiple languages in use, usually regionally or by clan or similar, but a common language used within the species—like English is for humans.

The translators nearly everyone has equipped are extremely powerful, having been in use and constant development for closer to two thousand years. They are perfectly capable of translating any languages they're programmed for with microsecond delays—essentially as well, or better, as a native speaker's brain can. These are used in the cases where there is no common language, or when a party feels they would be limited by their skill. The translators also emulate the speaker's voice, simplifying the experience, and by default modulate the actual foreign-language speech out from the stream going through the aurals. The only unsolved problem is that in a face-to-face conversation, the speaker's words will be out of sync with the speech. This can be disconcerting.

Partially for this reason, the Citadel established a common language early on. As the asari were the first species, and the salarians who came next were quick learners, the language chosen was the common tongue of the asari, Astran. It is used for all official and public communications, and widely used in everyday life. All Systems Alliance personnel learn Astran—in fact, most schools on Earth have begun teaching it as their second language in the decades after humans joined the galactic community.

Astran is from the Thessian republic of Astra. The name derives from the word for 'mountainous region' because Astra spreads along most of the significant highlands of Thessia. (Nos Astra, the capital of Illium, means something like 'the mountainous region which we built'.) The vast natural resources and shelter of Astra made it the biggest player in Thessian politics and economy, leading to the dominant role of its language.

Serran is the language of Serra, the republic in which the city of Serrice lies, and whence Liara T'Soni is from.

Chapter 42:

_SA fleet vessel command structure_: the layout at the top is fairly straightforward. A ship's run by five people: the CO (with few exceptions this is a Captain for Frigates and non-combat vessels, a Rear Admiral for Cruisers, and an Admiral for Dreadnoughts and Carriers), the XO, the Chief Navigator (who on Frigates may also be the XO), the Chief of Engineering, and the actual pilot or helmsman. In addition to this the senior command consist of the Chiefs of Defense and Offense (same person on Frigates but rarely on larger ships), Ground and Extravehicular Ops Chief (who may also be the XO, and is usually of rank with the XO otherwise), and possibly the Chief of Deck Ops (responsible for the Fighters and/or shuttles and hangars).

Excluding combat situations, the officers in principle work a similar 6 hours on–6 hours off schedule as the rest of the crew excluding ground ops ('marines'), though especially the CO and XO often partially overlap. During off-time, each post has an assigned relief officer.

The day-to-day running of the ship is handled by the XO and the navigator. The CO's tasks are split into deck, which has to do with the normal running of the ship, its destination etc. (and is thereby implemented by the aforementioned); and tactical meaning combat command. These tasks can be performed by different people should the need arise. For example the CO of a ship who also has Battle Group tactical command would likely accede both the deck and tactical commands of their ship to their XO, and focus on the higher-level operations instead.

A Battle Group or Strike Group is a (possibly permanent) detachment of ships from a System Navy, two or more of which in turn comprise a Fleet. At the latter two levels, the tasks of running the ships and running the entity are separate. The CO of a System Navy is often—but not necessarily—stationed on one of its Dreadnoughts or Cruisers, but has nothing to do with running that ship. They may assume command, but in practice very rarely do so while the normal command structure of the ship remains operational.

The top command structure of the SA fleets is theoretically fairly flat, elastic, and configurable (though in reality things may be a little less fluid), and it's based on assigned task rather than rank directly. In practical terms this means that there is a large number of Admirals—many of whom don't actually even serve on ships—whose command structure is dictated by the strategic situation. During combat, for example, the fleet admiralty has command above all others. The admiralty may also agree upon a certain command structure to be set in place as a temporary measure.

Chapter 57:

The individual fringes of the _asari crest_ are named, much as your fingers are. From the left, in Astran, they are _meies, ebelas, erras, atrole, aben,_ and _ameien_.

There are also three smaller ones at the back of the head. In Serran, they are commonly only known collectively as _ainova_, which means something like a floret. Astran refers to the whole as _entiuus_, the same word that is used for the equivalent of adipose fins. If there's need to separate, they are usually referred to as 'left', 'middle', and 'right', though medical names do exist for each.

* * *

**Characters**

Names appearing in given chapter for the first time. You can use Ctrl-F to find a specific name.

CO = Commanding Officer, XO = Executive Officer, ACO/AXO = Acting CO/XO, SA = Systems Alliance, SD = Special Detachment, S&R = Search & Rescue.

Chapter 1:

_**Mkawa, Edilson**_: Sergeant N6, Hammer strike force.  
_**Goto, Kasumi**_ alias _**Greta**_: part of ME2 Normandy squad, best thief in the galaxy, abandoned her identity by faking her own death.  
_**Bajic, Alina**_: Admiral, ACO SA 5th fleet. CO _**SSV Aconcagua**_.  
_**Moreau, Jeff "Joker"**_: First Lieutenant, SA Special Detachment Normandy, XO and helmsman of _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**EDI**_ (AI): SA SD Normandy, Artificial Intelligence existing partially in _**SSV Normandy**_ and partially in a humanoid cyborg form.  
_**Hackett, Steven**_: Admiral, CO Sword Fleet, Ranking Officer of SA Navy, CO SA 5th Fleet, CO _**SSV Tai Shan**_.  
_**Traynor, Samantha**_: Specialist (Communications), SA SD Normandy, Chief Communications Officer of _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Lok, ?**_: Doctor, SA SD Crucible, Chief Architect of the Crucible project.  
_**Bao, Jin**_: Second Lieutenant, SA SD Normandy, communications officer on _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Heise, Jurgen**_: First Lieutenant, SA SD Normandy, third pilot on _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Niemi, Ander**_: Second Lieutenant, SA SD Normandy, communications officer on _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Adams, Gregory**_: First Lieutenant, SA SD Normandy, Chief Engineer of _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Daniels, Gabriella "Gabby"**_: Engineer, SA SD Normandy, Engineer on _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Chakwas, Karin**_: Medical Doctor, SA SD Normandy, Chief Medical Officer of _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Harper, Jack**_ alias _**The Illusive Man**_: Leader of Cerberus.

Chapter 2:

_**Chambers, Kelly**_ alias _**Hannigan, Felicia**_: human civilian, ex-Cerberus, member of ME2 Normandy squad, last known location assisting refugees on the Citadel.  
_**Donnelly, Ken**_: Engineer, SA SD Normandy, Engineer on _**SSV Normandy**_.  
_**Shepard, Eevy**_: Spectre/N7 Commander, SA SD Normandy, CO _**SSV Normandy**_  
_**Urdnot, Grunt**_ (krogan): Captain, Clan Urdnot, CO Aralakh Company.

Chapter 3:

_**Vega, James**_: N7 Corporal (Staff Lieutenant), Hammer strike force, member of ME3 Normandy squad.  
_**Zorah, Tali**_ or _**Tali'Zorah vas Normandy**_ (quarian): Admiral, SA SD Normandy, long-time Normandy crewmember, long-time friend of Shepard.  
_**Rivers, Catey**_: Sergeant, Hammer strike force, member of Vega's squad.  
_**Ulyanov, Alexandr "Sasha"**_: Corporal, Hammer strike force, member of Vega's squad.  
_**Molina, Robito**_: Corporal, Hammer strike force, member of Vega's squad.  
_**Vakarian, Garrus**_ (turian): General, SA SD Normandy, long-time Normandy crewmember and long-time friend of Shepard.  
_**Javik**_: prothean, General, SA SD Normandy, last prothean, revived from cryo-hibernation.  
_**Rodriguez, ?**_, Unknown rank, Hammer strike force. First report of the husks surviving the death of the Reapers.  
_**Jonsson, Mattias**_: Yeoman, SA 5th fleet, yeoman of _**SSV Orizaba**_.  
_**Shepard, Hannah**_: Admiral, SA 5th fleet, CO _**SSV Orizaba**_. Mother of Eevy Shepard.  
_**Chandara, Amita**_: Rear Admiral, SA 5th fleet, XO/ACO _**SSV Orizaba**_.  
_**Alenko, Kaidan**_: Spectre, Citadel Spectres, member of the original _**Normandy**_ crew.  
_**Anderson, David**_: Admiral, SA Earth resistance, ACO Hammer strike force.  
_**Ranas, Arron**_ (turian): Corporal, Hammer strike force.  
_**Liu, Jon**_: Second Lieutenant, SA 5th fleet, shuttle pilot on _**SSV Orizaba**_.  
_**Te Aras, Lidanya**_ or _**Matriarch Lidanya**_ (asari): Matriarch, Asari 1st fleet, ACO Sword Fleet, CO _**Destiny Ascension**_.  
_**Lakopoulos, Aristo**_: Admiral, ACO Sword Fleet human contingent, CO SA 4th Fleet, CO _**SSV Fuji**_.  
_**Gerrel, Han**_ or _**Han'Gerrel vas Neema**_ (quarian): Admiral, CO Quarian Heavy Fleet.  
_**Raan, Shala**_ or _**Shala'Raan vas Tonbay**_ (quarian): Admiral, Quarian Envoy to the joint fleets.  
_**Rachni Queen**_: no name known, rachni, Queen and leader of the rachni.  
_**Rastias, Mazin**_ (turian): Admiral, ACO Sword Fleet turian contingent.  
_**T'Soni, Liara**_ (asari): Shadow Broker and SA Acting General, SA SD Normandy, long-time Normandy crewmember, bondmate of Eevy Shepard.

Chapter 4:

_**Pressly, Charles**_: Second Lieutenant, SA 5th fleet, former navigator of _**SSV Normandy SR-1**_, Killed in Action in the 2184 attack.  
_**Legion**_ (geth): Geth Mobile Platform, a gestalt artificial intelligence who worked with the _**Normandy**_, voluntarily deactivated on Rannoch in 2186.

Chapter 5:

_**Urdnot, Wrex**_ (krogan): Leader of Clan Urdnot, strongest contender for ruler of Tuchanka, long-time friend and ally of Shepard.  
_**Coats, Daniel**_: Major, SA Earth resistance. Admiral Anderson's right-hand man during the Earth occupation.  
_**Napassa, Aethyta**_ or _**Matriarch Aethyta**_ (asari): Matriarch, attached to Asari 1st Fleet, ACO independent commando unit, father of Liara T'Soni.  
_**Ebus, Ami**_ (asari): aide, Asari 1st fleet, aide assigned to assist Hannah Shepard while on the _**Destiny Ascension**_.  
_**Bostrom, Henry**_: Lieutenant, Science Officer Citadel Rim Mission 2182/5, spouse of Hannah Shepard, father of Eevy Shepard.  
_**Reegar, Kal**_ or _**Kal'Reegar vas Neema**_ (quarian): Captain, Quarian Admiralty Board Joint Assets Unit, CO JAU Detachment Reegar, friend of Tali'Zorah and the _**Normandy**_ crew.

Chapter 6:

_**Marks, Raj**_, Sergeant, Hammer strike force, member of Kaidan's temporary squad tending to Admiral Anderson.  
_**Continau, Xauvier**_, Corporal, Hammer strike force, member of Kaidan's temporary squad tending to Admiral Anderson.  
_**Victus, Adrien**_ or _**Primarch Victus**_ (turian): Primarch of the Turian Hierarchy, CO Turian First and Third Armies in the battle of London.  
_**Vanna, Eris**_ (asari): Asari Second Fleet, ACO Citadel Search & Rescue operation, CO S&R unit 5.

Chapter 7:

_**Ibhan, Mas**_ or _**Mas'Ibhan vas Neema**_ (quarian): Flight Officer, Quarian Admiralty Board JAU, Kal'Reegar's shuttle pilot.  
_**Amirai, Inan**_ or _**Inan'Amirai vas Taw**_ (quarian): Medical Doctor, Quarian civilian fleet, medic attached to Kal'Reegar's unit.  
_**Vanna, Terea**_ (asari): Medical Doctor, Asari Second Fleet, Medical Officer attached to S&R unit 5. Sister of Eris Vanna.  
_**Xiao, Fo-hsing "Foss"**_: Corpsman, Hammer strike force, member of Kaidan's temporary squad tending to Admiral Anderson.  
_**Weiss, Albert**_, Medical Doctor, Primary Medical Specialist, Hammer strike force, roaming the battleground in London to gather wounded.

Chapter 8:

_**Bailey, Armando**_: Commander, Citadel Security (C-Sec), commander of the Citadel's police force, formerly the commander of the Zakera Ward C-Sec district.  
_**Krios, Kolyat**_: drell, Attached to C-Sec, son of assassin Thane Krios.  
_**Rodriguez, May**_: Biotics Student, Attached to Hammer strike force's Second Medical Corps, one of Jack's "kids" from Grissom Academy.

Chapter 9:

_**T'Loak, Aria**_ (asari): Matriarch (but don't call her that), de facto ruler of Omega, currently deposed and on the Citadel.  
_**Miius, Liselle**_ (asari): Younger daughter of Aria T'Loak, killed by Cerberus (unbeknownst to Aria) in 2184.  
_**Alene, Linesse**_ (asari): Elder daughter of Aria T'Loak, last known location somewhere in the Shrike Abyssal nebula a few weeks into the Reaper war.

Chapter 10:

_**Tann, Tasah**_ (batarian): Admiral, CO Sword Fleet batarian contingent, CO batarian dreadnought _**The Red Wind**_.  
_**Bat, Nif**_ (volus): Admiral, CO Sword Fleet volus/elcor/hanar contingent, CO volus dreadnought _**Kwunu**_.  
_**Vosque, Dorner**_: Leader of the Blue Suns, CO Sword Fleet mercenary/civilian contingent, CO Blue Suns cruiser _**Perseus**_.  
_**Lawson, Miranda**_: Ex-Cerberus civilian, attached to the Burns Unit on _**SSMV Tiber**_ of the hospital fleet, part of the _**Normandy**_ ME2 crew.  
_**Nitaros, Jacelin**_ (turian): ChiefMed, CO and Chief Medical Officer of the hospital fleet, CMO of the _**Rakhas**_.

Chapter 11:

_**Laksh, Dajeer**_: Medical Doctor, Hospital fleet, surgeon on _SSMV Danube_.  
_**Kalimoff, Cintzia**_: Medical Doctor, Hospital fleet, surgeon on _SSMV Danube_.

Chapter 12:

_**Westmoreland, Bethany "Befs"**_: Private, SA SD Normandy, military guard serving on _SSV Normandy_.  
_**Campbell, Sarah**_: Private, SA SD Normandy, military guard serving on _SSV Normandy_.  
_**Copeland, Bernhardt**_: Ensign, SA SD Normandy, yeoman of _SSV Normandy_.  
_**Shu Yu, Liko**_: Corporal, SA SD Normandy, secondary fire support squad ground team on _SSV Normandy_.

Chapter 13:

_**Kirrahe, Par**_ (salarian), Major, Salarian Special Tasks Group, Hammer strike force, long-time acquaintance of Shepard, went rogue to bring his unit to the final battle against salarian government orders.

Chapter 14:

_**Garondt, Zoe**_ alias _**Goto, Kasumi**_: Kasumi's newest alias.  
_**T'Mion, Tevos**_ or _**Councilor Tevos**_ (asari): Councilor and Matriarch, Citadel Council, asari councilor.  
_**Sparatus, Mitron**_ (turian): Councilor, Citadel Council, turian councilor.  
_**Valern, Baru**_ (salarian): Councilor, Citadel Council, salarian councilor, whereabouts unknown.  
_**Osoba, Dominic**_: Councilor, Citadel Council, Earth's temporary councilor replacement.

Chapter 15:

_**Cortez, Steve**_: Second Lieutenant, SA SD Normandy, Drop shuttle pilot, ground operations chief, _SSV Normandy_  
_**Calitx, Joan**_: Captain, SA 8th Fleet, Sword Fleet S&R, CO frigate _SSV Leyte_.

Chapter 17:

_**Akor, Tig**_ Professor of Galactic Economics, Nos Astra Business School.  
_**Orra, Letana**_ (asari): News anchor, GNN.  
_**Menor, Feron**_ (drell): Information broker, Shadow Broker Network, Liara's friend and right-hand man in running the network.  
_**Urdnot, Galem**_ (krogan): Clan Urdnot media director.

Chapter 18:

_**Bashu, Mim**_, Biotics Student, attached to Hammer Strike force support artillery, one of Jack's "kids" from Grissom Academy.  
_**Sundquist, Olaf**_, Biotics Student, attached to Hammer Strike force support artillery, one of Jack's "kids" from Grissom Academy.  
_**Larionov, Yvon**_, Biotics Student, attached to London supplemental medical corps, one of Jack's "kids" from Grissom Academy.  
_**Natanda, Tonu**_, Sergeant, SA SDS Normandy, tactical operator on _SSV Normandy_.  
_**Alitez, Jorge**_, Master Sergeant, SA SDS Normandy, scanner operator on _SSV Normandy_.

Chapter 19:

_**T'Soni, Benezia**_ or _**Matriarch Benezia**_, Matriarch, Formerly of the Thessian parliament, mother of Liara T'Soni, suffered indoctrination and was turned to the side of the Reapers, died on Noveria in 2183.

Chapter 20:

_**Keethem, Nas**_ (drell): Captain, CO C-Sec Tayseri Ward, died during the Reaper invasion of the citadel.  
_**Vergara, Margit**_: Ex-wife of Armando Bailey.  
_**Vergara, Fiona**_: Daughter of Armando Bailey.  
_**Vergara, Joan**_: Son of Armando Bailey.

Chapter 21:

_**Nuan, Qiu**_, Sergeant, SA Military Police, SA Second Fleet, MP on _SSV Tiber_.  
_**Van Den Bak, Pieter**_, Operations Chief, SA Military Police, SA Second Fleet, XO MP _SSV Tiber_.  
_**Storimer, Jon**_, Captain, SA Second Fleet, XO _SSV Manchester_, currently recovering on _SSV Tiber_.  
_**Dabrowskj, Pawel**_, Captain, SA Second Fleet, CO _SSV Tiber_.  
_**Gek, Jannah**_, Staff Commander, SA Second Fleet, XO _SSV Tiber_.  
_**Solus, Mordin**_ (salarian): Doctor, Unaffiliated Ex-STG, friend of Shepard, died ensuring the delivery of the genophage cure on Tuchanka.  
_**?, Okeer**_ (krogan): Medical Doctor and Warlord, unknown clan affiliation, scientist who bred Grunt. Died on Korlus at the time of Grunt's retrieval.

Chapter 26:

_**Heplorn, Maelon**_ (salarian): Doctor, Unaffiliated Ex-STG, former assistant of Mordin Solus, did initial research on genophage cure in 2184–5.

Chapter 31:

_**Sanders, Kahlee**_, Ph.D., A Director at the Jon Grissom Academy, temporarily attached to the science fleets, friend of Admiral Anderson, top computer scientist, involved in undoing various Cerberus plots in the late 2170's and early 2180's, and Reaper artifacts since the 2160's.  
_**Grayson, Gillian**_, biotic, last known location on the quarian craft _Idenna_, possibly the strongest human biotic ever born, autistic, protegée of Kahlee Sanders.  
_**Mitra, Hendel**_, bodyguard, former head of security at the Jon Grissom Academy, last known location on the quarian craft _Idenna_, protector of Gillian Grayson.

Chapter 33:

_**Urdnot, Bakara**_ or _**Eve**_ (krogan), shaman, shaman and leader of the female clan Urdnot, only survivor of the research for and source of the synthesized genophage cure, currently trying to co-ordinate resistance in a temporary stronghold in the outskirts of the ancient, ruined city of Marokh-Kai.  
_**Raik, Agot**_ (krogan), child, member of the female clan Raik, runner and errand boy in the makeshift Urdnot-Raik-Jorgal stronghold.  
_**Jurdon, Etrak**_ (krogan), mercenary, freelance mercenary and clan Jurdon outcast, veteran merc, currently under clan Urdnot authority, was not able to join the krogan troops bound for Palaven and other battlefields on time.  
_**Raik, Amak**_ (krogan), elder, elder of the informal female clan council, leader of the female clan Raik, currently co-ordinating resistance with Bakara.  
_**Jorgal, Nise**_ (krogan), clan leader and communications specialist, leader of the female clan Jorgal, currently co-ordinating with Amak and Bakara.

Chapter 37:

_**Napassa, Lilani**_ (asari), architect, daughter of Matriarch Aethyta and Mykenares of Kahje, mother of two, last known location Thessia.  
_**Mykenares**_ or _**Mykenares of Kahje**_ (hanar), Spectre, peace officer and preacher, best-known for his role in dismantling a terrorist plot to destroy the Citadel between 1825 and 1827 CE. Died in 1832 CE, and was posthumously granted the title of Spectre—the first non-council species individual ever to earn it.

Chapter 39:

_**Propokov, Erven**_, rear admiral, Systems Alliance VI Research Centre, Chief of Staff SA Research, old friend of Kahlee Sanders, currently coordinating efforts to restart the geth and EDI.  
_**Amirai, Bine**_ or _**Bine'Amirai nar Taw**_ (quarian), VI research apprentice, Quarian Admiralty Board Pilgrimage Coordination, a young quarian resuming his previously interrupted pilgrimage, currently working as assistant to Kahlee Sanders, son of Inan'Amirai.

Chapter 43:

_**Hareei, Sienni**_ (asari), Huntress, Asari Third Fleet, one of the guards assigned to protect Commander Shepard's cabin on the _Tiber_

Chapter 47:

_**Te Earun, Onais**_ or _**Matriarch Onais**_ (asari), Matriarch, Asari 1st Fleet, Chief of Security of _Destiny Ascension_, Matriarch Lidanya's head of security.  
_**Vehea, Hilla**_ (asari), Huntress, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, CO/commando. Leading the evac for Kasumi and Jack  
_**Risa, Irilin "Iri"**_ (asari), Commando, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, commando.  
_**Aven, Maniia "Mii"**_ (asari), Huntress, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, commando, sister of Lyssa.  
_**T'Vi, Rilann "Rinn"**_ (asari), Commando, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, medic/commando.  
_**Aven, Lyssa**_ (asari), Pilot, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, shuttle pilot, sister of Maniia.  
_**Carann, Tienni "Tai"**_ (asari), Commando, Asari 1st Fleet, _Destiny Ascension_ Ground Operations, Strike Team 34, commando/shuttle gunner.

Chapter 48:

_**Zaranesc, Sesta "Zar"**_ (turian), Lieutenant, Citadel Security (C-Sec), C-Sec Tayseri Ward, a sector chief and VIP manager.

Chapter 49:

_**Uska**_ (asari), a very young asari girl still hiding out from Reaper forces a week after the end of the war with her yet unnamed baby sister. Parents' whereabouts unknown.

Chapter 52:

_**Matsuo, Aki**_: Medical Doctor, Hospital fleet, gynecological and colorectal surgeon on _SSMV Danube_.  
_**Ji, An**_: Medical Doctor, Hospital fleet, plastic and cybernetic surgeon on _SSMV Danube_.

Chapter 55:

_**Arili, Malla**_ (asari): huntress, independent commando unit assigned to the Shrike Abyssal, ACO of unit, acquainted with Linesse Alene

_**Parysac, Iules**_ (turian): C-Sec officer, Tayseri ward, victim of murder.  
_**Varela, Zara**_: C-Sec officer, Tayseri ward, victim of murder.

Chapter 59:

_**Rabal, Chorban**_ (salarian): self-proclaimed scientist who in 2183 studied the Keepers and uncovered some significant details about them. Whereabouts unknown.


	2. Chapter 1

Mkawa woke in a world consisting of clammy cold, sharp pain, and darkness. There was a low, rhythmic sound nearby, a spit immediately followed by a wet _thunk_.

He was on his back, laying uncomfortably on something lumpy, soft in places and hard in others. Trying to shift his upper body to prop himself up caused a lance of pain to shoot through his right leg. Involuntarily drawing breath to scream, he dissolved into a choking cough as his throat was filled with something wet and viscous.

The spasms brought him to gagging and heaving, and then a blinding light as something was pulled off his face just as he retched. He felt a hand roughly turn his head to the side. Another hand settled on his shoulder, firmly keeping him from lifting it too high and rolling onto his side.

"Gods, I wish you had stayed under for this," spoke a soft, female voice just above him. Something tickly brushed over his cheek. Hair.

"Keep still."

Cough subsiding, Mkawa forced himself calm and tried to pry his stinging eyes open. His head tilted to the side, the lighting was gentler but still caused his vision to blur with tears. The foreign hands lifted and he felt the air stir around his face before seeing the woman's slight form move to the side, drop on one knee, reload, and aim the weapon she had been holding, all in one fluid motion.

Ignoring the pain in his leg—and the new, slowly intensifying source of pain somewhere in his chest—his military training took over to analyze the scene around him. He was obviously injured, but there was no sound of return gunfire, and the woman didn't seem concerned about being out of cover. That—

—That was a change. The noise on the ground had been debilitating. The gunfire, the explosions, the screeching of the Reapers and the electric sound of their rays. The stench of the corpses the Reapers had amassed, the stench of new blood and guts. The ozone smell of battle, mixed with the acrid smoke from the fires raging everywhere. He remembered being ejected from the carrier by one near hit of the crimson rays; the pain in his leg and being tossed like a rag doll by another's blast just a few meters away from where he'd come to a halt. A single, lone soldier stumbling into the white column. Mkawa had crawled after, desperate to help. Agonizing moments of pulling himself forward using his rifle for leverage had brought him to the pillar, fearing that the enemy would notice him at any moment but too close to breaking to do anything but continue. The lift had unceremoniously picked him off the platform and tumbled him into—

_Thunk_

The spitting sound that had died away without him really noticing had returned. He tried to focus on the woman, finding her firing her weapon—fitted with a small silencer capping the muzzle—at an odd angle. The sight of the almost got him to instinctively find cover. Only the absence of return fire and the woman's warning not to move quelled the desire. Forcing himself still, he gingerly tilted his head upwards to see what was happening.

Another sharp jab of pain in his leg brought with it terrible nausea. He was already shivering and the room felt colder by the second. He wondered whether there was an air leak somewhere, sucking out the warmth.

They were in a plain, utilitarian corridor. Metal walls, few lights, unmistakably a spacecraft…a maintenance section, perhaps. There were bodies everywhere, mostly human. Some on their own, but most in piles of varying heights. Some of the closest ones seemed to be moving, and it took a split-second for him to realize it was the woman's gunfire impacting the corpses.

"What are you—" he started incredulously just as the woman turned back toward him.

With the same grace he'd seen earlier, the woman pulled a short knife from her belt and crouched over him. Her black, silky hair fell around his face as before. He found himself looking into a pair of strange, compassionate brown eyes behind a stochastically flickering visor. Unmistakably asian features were covered in soot, grease, and blood, but the woman seemed to lack any serious injury.

He didn't have the time to continue his question before she flipped the knife around and firmly but not ungently pushed the handle sideways into his mouth. It tasted of leather, and sweat, and roses.

"Bite it and don't move," she said softly, drawing away toward his feet. "I'm sorry."

Despite the order, Mkawa's head shot up. Through vertigo he saw, as if in slow motion, the woman grabbing a combat glove—_his_ glove—off the floor. She glanced up at him one last time, and clicked the thermal release on her pistol. The glowing hunk fell neatly into the palm of the glove, drawing an immediate hiss from the searing surface. Mkawa had barely time to register shock, his eyes widening and fingers searching for something to hold on. The woman shoved the thermal against his flesh just above where his knee used to be.

Through the white-hot agony, he had one single perfectly lucid thought. He was gripping someone's jaw.

* * *

{_Normandy_, this is Bajic. Can your AI process schematic data for us? Transmission source is the Citadel. Highest priority,} the fleet command priority channel suddenly sounded, muting the fleet chatter in Joker's ears.

{Admiral Bajic, _Normandy_. This is EDI. Receiving data stream, stand by,} EDI replied from her chair before Joker had even registered the caller's name. EDI would usually have responded directly on the channel rather than actually speak, which he took as meaning she'd diverted all her spare shipside resources to the data immediately.

Alina Bajic was Hackett's third in command and her voice a stark reminder that they'd not heard from the old man himself since the Crucible attached. The battle was raging uncontrollably so it was possible Hackett was forced to delegate more than usual, but Joker couldn't help but worry. No news from the ground, nothing from Shepard, Hackett offline…a transmission from the Citadel was the only piece of even _potentially_ good news in the last few minutes.

All forces, _Normandy_ among them, had been moved to more and more defensive roles to keep the Crucible safe for as long as possible. It had become abundantly clear that the allied fleets were no match for the Reapers; even with all their improvements and the Reapers initially slightly distracted, they had still been losing three ships for every Reaper craft. The only ones truly holding their own were the few—way too few—obscenely shaped rachni ships. Hackett had been forced to change strategy to harrying the Reapers and drawing them away from the Crucible rather than even trying to destroy them. The _Normandy_ had been ordered to try to stay disengaged and stealthed as much as possible, only performing precision strikes to aid troubled ships or finish off unwary, damaged Reapers. Excepting one collision with debris that caused minor injuries, the _Normandy_ had managed to stay safe, and he hoped that—

{Admiral Bajic, _Normandy_. My analysis confirms the data is consistent with our information. Complete falsification is possible, but there is no way to verify. Confidence 88%,} EDI intoned, interrupting his train of thought.

He finished recovering the ship from shaking off an enemy chaser and setting an intercept course for a limping dreadnought before shooting a questioning glance at EDI. He noticed Traynor turning from her new console to do the same.

"EDI?" Traynor asked worriedly. He couldn't blame her, he was getting all kinds of bad vibes from the exchange himself.

{Very well, EDI. Dr. Lok's team is still processing, but— Wait, stand by,} Bajic replied, reacting to someone yelling in the background. {Damn it.}

{Admiral?} asked Joker and EDI almost in unison.

{We've lost the source connection,} came the deflated reply. {We think your confirmation went through, but Lok didn't have time to cross-check.} After a brief pause, she continued. {EDI, any precautions?}

{None for the fleet. I will do what I can here, admiral. I also need authorization for the direct channel for the geth,} EDI said, unstrapping herself from her chair. "Samantha, follow me," she continued, glancing over her shoulder. "Bao can take over the communications."

"EDI, what the hell—" he started before the priority channel transmitted one final time.

{Understood, EDI. Authorization added. Good luck. Bajic out.}

Joker frantically checked the scanners and engaged stealth, hoping he'd have a few seconds before something required his attention. When he turned, EDI was calling Engineering, asking Adams to send someone to the AI core if he could spare them, and a winded Bao was helping Traynor unstrap from her chair.

"Jeff," EDI said, leaning in close. She placed her hand on his cheek, the sensation a curious mix of cool and warm. "You have the ship."

He could only stammer, having completely lost track of events and close to panicking. Warning chimes and lights were coming on the console, but he ignored them, trying to understand what was happening.

"You have the ship," she repeated. "I have to transfer now, or we may lose control at an unpredictable time. I've already rerouted all possible manual controls to the crew. You can handle the rest, Jeff, I know you can."

With that, she grabbed Traynor's arm and all but dragged the smaller woman at full run toward the CIC. He tried to yell after them, but the combination of actual alarm chimes going wild and Heise shuffling from _his_ seat on the left over to EDI's shouting that he couldn't handle everything from his station forced his attention back to his board.

All of EDI's shipside systems had been shut down and moved to VI or manual control. Behind him, Bao and Niemi were trying to co-ordinate sharing the new workload. The urge to get up and run after EDI was almost overwhelming, and only the memory of the last time kept him in his seat. Last time he lost his cool, Shepard lost her life.

{All ships, this is Bajic,} the fleet broadcast channel sounded. {Defend the Crucible at all costs. I repeat, at all costs. If you need to block fire with your ship, do it. If you can ram them, do it. Block their main guns. Keep them off.

{It won't be long now. Good luck. Bajic out.}

* * *

Mkawa grunted as he got up on his good leg, supported by the woman on one side and leaning on the wall on the other. He felt a brief bout of dizziness, but it cleared out by the time she'd slung his arm over her shoulders the best she could and satisfied herself that his leg wasn't going to start gushing again. The heat of the thermal had resealed the wound reasonably well, and using his only remaining medi-gel pouch and hacking the reserves in his suit to flood his system had been enough to dull the pain and start replacing the lost blood. The woman still carried all the gear he'd seen her with, but she'd only permitted him his assault rifle. His crumpled helmet, all supplies, and the extraneous parts of his armor lying discarded. Only the breastplate remained because the shield generator embedded in it was still working.

There was nothing he would have liked more than to just lie down for a moment, but the girl had insisted they had to move on when a keeper trudged past them and toward a hatch at the end of the corridor. Resting against the wall in the next corridor, he was glad she had: the hatch had closed almost immediately behind the keeper. She allowed him a moment to recover when they saw the keeper stopping to fiddle with a panel on the wall.

"Why…wh…how," he started, looking down to where she was examining his leg again. "How did you find me?"

The woman looked up at him with a slightly cocked eyebrow. "Accident. I wasn't looking for _you_. Or anyone, really." Seeing his puzzled expression, she elaborated almost reluctantly, even as she maneuvered back to support his weight. "I was following the keepers to see if I could find a way to reopen the Citadel. So I wandered around a bit, taking out whatever husks I saw. Then the keepers all started moving toward the center. I tagged along and ended up following this guy," she continued, nodding in the direction of the creature.

She propped him up and gently nudged him to move. He saw the keeper still working on the panel, but the hatch ahead was open. She cleared her throat quietly. "I hear something up ahead. I can't carry you for too long so we need to find somewhere you won't be trapped."

She was silent for a moment to make sure he got to a good rhythm, and then continued, her breathing audibly strained from supporting his bulk. "I probably would have thought you one of these poor souls," she said sadly, gesturing at the piled corpses, "except the blood on the floor wasn't congealed yet."

"I'm glad you were awake after all, Edilson. I would've needed to leave you when the keeper moved," she said apologetically, correcting course slightly to guide them around the few remaining scattered bodies and to the hatch ahead.

"I understand," Mkawa nodded, and followed it with a frown. "How—"

The woman flashed a quick smile. "Your ID chip, Sergeant. I'm also glad you turned out to be on my team."

Three steps later she glanced at him again, then stopped and held his eyes intently for a moment.

"I'm Greta."

* * *

They both stood still, staring at the machinery spinning in front of them. The third corridor had let them out on the brink of a chasm separating the section they'd come through and an inner cylindrical tower. Mkawa leaned against the doorway, gaping at the various moving metal platforms. Greta had pulled her visor down and was evidently scanning for a route to the other side.

He was feeling slightly better despite the exertion. The worst buzz from the flood of pain meds was subsiding and the water and medi-gel had actually kickstarted blood cell production, replacing some of the considerable amount he had lost. He was no longer shivery, and his skin was losing the ashen paleness. The pain was tolerable. Still, he wasn't sure he was going to be up for going across even with Greta's help.

He carefully pushed his back against the doorframe and tried to lower himself to a sit without disturbing the wound. Moderately successful, he looked the remnants of his leg over for bleeding. The leg had been cut off clean about a handspan above the knee, and he had to assume it had gotten cauterized right off or he would never have made it to the lift. It had been bleeding increasingly badly when Greta found him, so his entry into the corridor must have been less than gentle, knocking him out and opening the wound.

* * *

Kasumi pushed the visor up on her forehead and glanced over her shoulder at the one-legged soldier. He had managed to seat himself and the wound looked fine, but there was still an unhealthy sheen to his skin. It had at least recovered from the grayish pallor she'd found him with into a warm chocolate.

She turned her head back toward the bizarre display in front of her. The entire space between the inner and outer cylinders was constantly transforming. Her malfunctioning visor and vision enhancements had let her see _something_ up in the center, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. A body, possibly. She thought she might be able to get across the shifting platforms herself…might be. Edilson would have to stay in the outer cylinder, and Kasumi had a bad feeling about it. Had since she had noticed the doorways closing after the keepers.

Then, with a low rumble, everything in the chamber came to a halt. There was a walkway, an almost straight path, slightly to their left. She grinned.

"Quick, get up!" she exclaimed turning toward Mkawa. "We have to get across now."

The man looked up at her and shook his head. "You go, Greta. We don't know how long it's going to last."

Kasumi weighed the words for a moment, before nodding her assent. "I don't think it's safe on this side, though," she hedged.

"Go. See what's there. If the situation permits and this thing doesn't move again, you can come back for me," Mkawa insisted. "Go."

She held his eyes for a moment, spun around, and sprinted for the bridge.

"Let's see if I can cut down the distance any for you if you _do_ come back," Mkawa grumbled quietly as he spun himself onto his stomach and started pulling himself toward the walkway.

He considered it an extra incentive when, just as the woman had vanished up a ramp on the other side, the entire chasm started to hum and resonate with an immense power.

* * *

It had only taken a minute or two for the crew to get the EDI-less _Normandy_ under control. It wasn't smooth sailing but at least they weren't constantly at risk of crashing into something anymore.

_Flying is just like riding a bike._

Joker had his hands full enough that he'd only tried to contact the AI core twice. The second time Sam had just told him that they were trying to get EDI's power supply disconnected, and something about the geth not listening to her.

_Never did learn to ride, of course. Fucking bones._

The fleet was getting killed, but they were holding the Reapers off the Crucible. Not for long, though. Nobody had even managed to verify that there were live troops on board, and the defensive perimeter was going to fall in the next 10–20 minutes.

{_Normandy_, Bajic. How close to the junction can you get? We've received confirmation that Shepard opened the Citadel, but we've not been able to contact her since. We need someone in there,} the admiral demanded suddenly on the priority channel, her voice raw but tinged with a glimmer of hope.

{Admiral, this is _Normandy_. I don't know how close, but I'm going to find out,} Joker nearly shouted back even as he flipped the _Normandy_ around tightly enough to cause stumbling and yelps despite the dampers.

Bajic did not reply, and he wasn't waiting for a confirmation. He thumbed on the intercom.

{Traynor, I need you on the scanners! Get someone else to help EDI!} rang through the entire ship.

Joker and Heise were lining up an approach through the ring when a panting Traynor tuned into Joker's channel.

{We're done with EDI, Gabby can do the rest. EDI's talking to the geth now. What am I looking for?}

He paused for a moment. {I'm not sure, Sam. The Commander is confirmed to have been on the Citadel, opening the doors, but there's no word from her since. There may be others, too.}

Traynor sounded less stressed, back in familiar territory. {Yessir. Any idea _where_ we're looking?}

{Going to try to get as close to the Presidium junction as we can. ETA 45 seconds,} Joker said, checking the time from their vector.

{I'm ready. Slow as you can, sir.}

"Yeah," he muttered, and turned to Heise to verify nobody was on their tail before decelerating and maneuvering as close to the station as he dared. He flipped the intercom.

{This is XO Moreau speaking, I…

{Oh, hell, this seems much easier when it's the Commander doing it. Okay.

{This is Joker. I need volunteers to EVA straight through the Presidium Tower wall. The Commander is in there, and she's in trouble.}

For a moment he felt as if a perfect silence had descended on the _Normandy_. His throat tight, he was searching for words to rouse someone to action when the sweetest sound in the world, a deep, gravelly, bass sound rumbled up from the deck below. Joker's mouth twisted into a grin. He had _forgotten_.

The med bay channel clicked on and broadcast static, interspersed by heavy thunks and guttural roars.

A pregnant pause passed before Dr. Chakwas spoke in an equally low growl. {Goddamnit, Moreau. He wasn't healed up yet, he's in no condition to go out there.}

* * *

Kasumi had just crossed the walkway and was heading up a ramp toward the inner cylindrical section when she felt the thrum in her soles. A few steps later, she heard it. It sounded like an EMP bomb charging up, just…infinitely larger. She risked a quick glance back and saw that the mechanism remained still, but the sergeant was no longer where she left him. Entering through a vast gateway into the inner cylinder, she slowed just enough to verify there was no door that she'd need to try prevent from closing and then pushed on.

A few drops of blood here and there drew a path toward the center. A quick check of her tool reiterated what the silence in her aurals already told her: comms were still down, both local and remote. Kasumi clicked on her cloak and faded from view. She only had a little power left, but it was beginning to feel like she wouldn't need it for long anyway.

The inner area seemed much more stable. A few steps inside the gateway she no longer felt the floor humming, and the sound was clearly confined to the chasm space outside. As she came to the inner chamber, she slowed to a halt, puzzled. A quick additional sweep around the space showed no active threats, people or otherwise.

An amazing vista opened in front of her through immense windows: two wards were visible, both ravaged by multiple fires and explosions. Between the wards she glimpsed sights of the battle raging outside; ships of all descriptions and indiscriminate fire everywhere she looked.

Tearing her eyes away from the awesome display, she tried to focus back on the room. Two bodies lay on the floor. The first one facedown not far from her and the entrance to the space, lying head toward where she was standing.

Another check of her surroundings reassured Kasumi it was safe enough to kneel next to the shape. Human. Male. The gaping hole in the back of the head was a pretty solid clue that the man was dead, if the pool of blood wasn't evidence enough. She risked lifting the head, only to come eye to eye with a familiar face. The cybernetic eyes still had some reserve energy left and were trying to focus on her. Unnerving, but she'd seen it before. The Illusive Man himself was quite certainly dead. Kasumi let his head drop to the floor unceremoniously.

Stalking closer to the other shape, she noted the swaths of blood. First from her left near the Illusive Man's feet and winding toward the right, pausing in a pool—a moment of rest?—in front of the console, then drawing a tragically short distance to the body slumped half-hidden behind the console. The dead woman was staring out of the window with blind eyes. Her made-up face and blonde hair in a severe professional bun were unmarred by the blood pooling under her and the cybernetic cancer creeping up past her collar. Shot in the back, dead for less than ten minutes. Kasumi did a quick search for the woman's ID in her mobile database, but found nothing.

Kasumi's cloak flickered off when she got up into a crouch, the power reserves starting to go. She turned it off, satisfied the room was as secure as she could expect anywhere to be, and looked around again. Nothing. The console in front of her was dead. There was a walkway to the side but it went nowhere. The only exit was the one she came through. Nothing obvious in the walls. Nothing ob—

* * *

Mkawa was crying. Crying like a little girl, and he'd have been happy to print t-shirts saying so if it only got him off the fucking walkway. As soon as he'd gotten a third of the way across the narrow path and past the fear of being crushed or flung off at any moment, the vibrations had gotten so strong that his entire body was shaking and bouncing. His broken chest and mangled leg were striking the hard floor twice a second.

Every jolt sent searing pain all through his right side. He'd vomited twice, but the stump wasn't bleeding badly so far as he could tell after risking a pause to glance downward. His elbows and fingers were stripped raw, and he wished he could have said the pain didn't even register but in truth it sure as hell did. He still managed to convince himself that there was nothing left but to go on. He was here. He needed to be on the other side.

He only had a few meters to go when the hum and vibration stopped.


	3. Chapter 2

_A/N: Glossary entries for HIs and ions._

* * *

{EDI, Gabby, can one of you fill me in? What's going on?} Joker inquired for the third time, struggling to keep his voice level despite his thumping heart. Dropping the first team near the tower base had been a little closer than he'd have liked and he still had no idea what was going on with EDI. He'd brought the ship toward the top of the tower for the second drop-off as soon as the shuttle bay hatch had closed behind the first.

{Jeff, I'm not sure I was able to convince the geth,} said EDI's softly in his aural. {I hope they listen. If the analysis is right, we will need to disconnect any minute now. Samantha says the ship looks to be doing fine. I knew you could do it.}

Joker's relief hearing her voice was was so strong that he didn't immediately notice the channel had gone silent. {EDI?}

{Sir, this is Daniels. EDI just fully powered off. I'm disconnecting the remaining power now.}

{What do you mean powered—}

{It's firing! Get us out of here _right now_!} Traynor broke in a split-second later.

Joker's panel lit up with more system warnings than he'd ever seen, combined. Every metric the ship had was spiking. The _Normandy_ started shaking and shuddering violently even as he tried to maneuver the ship in a position where he could accelerate away from the giant structures all around them. Subsystems were dropping and coming back up faster than he could follow, let alone do anything about.

Then, suddenly, the ship settled. He was halfway to thinking he should reassess the situation and perhaps continue with the second team's deployment when all his hair stood on end. His teeth felt like they were vibrating. All the panels went dark and came back up. An inaudible rumble somewhere behind them sent a wave of sharp oscillation through the entire _Normandy_.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he recited, trying to get the main engines online. Heise was pushing what little power was available into the ions to get _any_ distance between them and the tower. Sam had ceased screaming in his ear and was coordinating with Bao, alerting all external channels she could possibly find about the Crucible activating.

His entire vision flashed into a crimson, purplish hue. The debris all around the ship was radiating crimson…the bits of the Citadel, even the empty of the fucking space itself was purple instead of black. Then the wave hit them, silent, tossing the frigate around like a leaf caught in a breeze.

* * *

Kasumi was paralyzed. She'd noticed the brief pause in the energies gathering around her, like a sharp intake of breath. Her head still turned up to examine the ceiling she had felt and heard a zap, and like a razor it had cut straight through her. One moment she was standing poised, the next she no longer had a body. She was on the floor, limbs pointing every which way as if a marionette's strings had been cut. She felt nothing, and all she saw were dancing stars against the backdrop of the roof of the great hall she was in, and the side of the console right next to her head.

For three horrifying seconds she felt nothing. Then, the faintest of tingles creeped up in her extremities and a palpable sense of relief flared up somewhere, only to be swept away when she saw a huge round piece of the ceiling tear off directly above her, followed by spiderwebs of cracks spreading through rest of the surface even as she heard the faint echo of an explosion somewhere distant and groans of strained metal all around her.

She barely felt it when the edge of the slab struck her directly below the elbow of her outstretched left arm, but she did see the other side of the huge disc fall onto the console she was laying next to, compressing it into a pile of debris less than half its original height. The bottom surface landing onto the raised, bent knee of her right leg was beyond her peripheral vision, sparing her from the sight of her thigh, knee, shin, and ankle being crushed between the slab and the floor. She had a moment to wonder about the trick of fate that had left the piece just a few centimeters above her face before everything turned a searing purplish red.

* * *

The complete numbness…no, the complete _absence_ of his body and its pain could have been from one of the storied afterlives. Mkawa thought he _had_ died until his blurry vision focused on the sandpaper texture of the walkway in his left eye, and the maze of platforms in his right. His left eye was slightly squeezed, against the top surface of his assault rifle the best he could tell.

He briefly marveled his calm, marveled being merely able to enjoy the respite from agony rather than focus on the walls of the inner cylindrical structure crumbling into the chasm around him. He found that he was able to move his fingers again just when a dark crimson light filled the entire space.

* * *

The energy wave had been surprisingly gentle. It had rocked the ship, but the miraculously still-working dampers had kept it a rolling swell instead of a tempest. When the purple receded from his vision, Joker took a quick look around the cockpit and found the other three crewmembers apparently similarly puzzled at still feeling quite well rather than dead.

He spoke into the intercom, his tone a bit gentler than usual for fear of disturbing the calm, {Everyone report in. Injuries?}

Keeping one eye on the crew report tally ticking all green on the left HI, he risked a glance outside. He still saw the crimson-purple out there, apparently expanding into the void like a wave.

"Joker. Joker!"

The helmsman turned toward Heise, who was pointing out of his window toward a Reaper dreadnought that was really entirely too fucking close to the _Normandy_. The word 'evasive' died on Joker's lips, though, when he saw the Reaper's lights flickering and dying, its fearsome main gun blinking out in a shower of sparks, its…appendages…falling limp at its sides. He tried to suppress the surge of hope he felt and was quite successful until a few seconds later every single officer in the fleet with comms authorization, and a view or a scanner, broke the most basic comms usage rule and screamed into the broadcast channel at the top of their lungs.

Trying to control himself and fighting off Heise who had already unstrapped and was trying to plant a smooch on him, Joker opened the intercom, and yelled in a staccato. {They're going down! The Reapers are all going down!

{Heise, goddam…_mmmmhmmmmf!_ Go kiss Bao!}

* * *

The purple left Kasumi as quick as it came. She held her breath for a moment, but it seemed to have had no effect on her—what little she could feel. Adding two and two together, she felt vaguely satisfied that the weapon seemed to actually have done _something_, even if she didn't quite know what.

She needed to take stock of her surroundings, such as they were. The room around her seemed quite bright still. Perhaps the sun, unless the power was still on somehow. The slab was above her, maybe by one or two handspans. The console on the right seemed to have been crushed solidly enough to support part of the slab's weight. The other part was resting on the floor…and her arm. She couldn't really feel much, yet, but years of honing her body awareness allowed her to extrapolate that much from the vague sensations she was getting. She couldn't see that far down, but suspected that her right leg was broken. Otherwise the slab had shielded her from damage, the rest of the debris bouncing to the side from its tilted surface.

If her injuries weren't worse than she thought, and _if_ she regained feeling and control of her muscles, and _if_ the whole place didn't explode, and _if_ there was actually something alive out there still…she might be able to get out of here, but not before feeling returned.

Kelly had tried to teach her meditation once…Kasumi figured this was as good a time to try it as any. It was, after all, about forgetting your body, so she reasoned it might work the other way too. A few minutes of intense concentration later she had actually managed to rediscover her right hand—though whether by effort or coincidence she couldn't tell—when the entire room jolted. She felt her face stretching backward, like in a high-G acceleration. The console next to her screeched as it seemed to fold further into itself under the slab's weight. Black stars returned to dance in her vision.

* * *

Mkawa couldn't breathe for a moment. He had finally regained some mobility in the right hand and, forgetting that he had no other muscle control, had pushed himself from his side straight onto his back, leaving the right hand flopping uselessly on top of his stomach. The pressure had only started a few moments ago, but it was crushing him against the floor and he could feel the air moving more laboriously in his throat.

Looking above and behind his head from his position on his back, without anything else to do, he had spied a shape somewhere in the upper layers of the central cylinder. Where the walls hand rent and crumbled, the ceilings collapsed into the debris field all around him, a humanoid body lay splayed. It seemed to have armor on, and could have been the soldier he had followed in except for what looked like an orange belt or sash. One arm was hanging over the edge of the of the remaining floor, and one of the legs was propped against a half of a pillar in a sickening angle. Something pooled around the head, but Mkawa couldn't tell if it was hair, or blood, or both.

He had been watching the body as much in an attempt to distract himself as out of interest, but it hadn't moved and he hadn't been able to make out any further details except that it was probably human. He thought it almost certainly wasn't Greta, at least…the armor was different, and she was smaller. When his eyes returned to the body, searching for anything that could possibly help him, he saw movement. His initial glimmer of hope soured quickly as he realized the movement was from the body slumping, very slowly, toward the edge. It struck him as odd, the body having been at rest ever since he had first seen it—

_Gravity._

The realization terrified him almost as much it elated him to understand what was happening. The gravity had increased significantly above normal, that was what was pressing him into the floor. They had to be accelerating somewhere…or falling. The body above had been stable at normal gravity, friction keeping it in place even on the slightly tilted surface, but the increase pulled it down harder. Still internalizing the situation, he saw the body slump a little further toward the edge, the leg that had been against the pillar now starting to tilt down over the head as if preparing for a bizarre somersault.

_Oh…_

The arm had moved. His vision was starting to narrow, black pushing in from the sides, but he was certain of it. The entire shoulder was over the edge, as was the head, but the arm had definitely moved — against the gravity. The body slid further jerkily.

_…Fuck._

The body – the _person_ – was at least a hundred meters above him. If he was alive, there was no way he'd survive the fall, even without the increased gravity. As his vision dimmed ever narrower, Mkawa had time to wonder why he felt worse for the unknown soldier than for himself. The last thing he saw was the body tumbling off the edge as its center of gravity slid over to the wrong side.

* * *

The unbridled bursts of joy neither on the _Normandy_ nor on the comms were showing any signs of quieting when Joker felt an enormous invisible hand pull him toward the fore. Heise, still unstrapped, was thrown over his chair and face first into the viewport. Screams and squeals from the direction of the CIC indicated others had been out of their harnesses, too.

He drew a deep breath when the dampers kicked in and reduced the strain on his chest, trying to figure out what was going on. Nothing on the scanners.

"Niemi, anchor yourself and secure Heise immediately! I don't know if the dampers will hold," He instructed the communications officer behind him, and flicked Traynor and Adams' comms. {Sam, what the fuck is this? Adams, are you seeing anything weird?}

The chief engineer responded almost immediately. {Everything in order, sir. Donnelly hit his head; he's strapped in now, though.}

{Sam? …Specialist Traynor?}

{Traynor here, sir,} the young woman replied. {I…I'm not sure, sir. The readings from the Citadel are literally off the charts. It's like a gravity field but there're also massive amounts of energy being pooled. Inconceivable amounts are fluctuating.}

Joker glanced to the side and saw that Niemi had gotten the unconscious Heise strapped in and was trying to revive the unconscious man.

"Get back to your seat if he's secured, Lieutenant," he barked at the young comms officer.

{English, Sam,} he pleaded as he released the mute button.

{Sir, you need to floor it. My best guess is that this gravitational effect is a result of some kind of a charge building in the Crucible.}

{A…charge? As in like a really, really big laser or something?}

{Or something, sir.}

{Adams, we're going backwards fast with full ions. I'm going to light her back up, and hope that's enough. You have permission to divert power to the fusion or the antimatter injectors as necessary. All of it. Sam—find out what the fuck this is.}

Both sounded acknowledgement, leaving Joker to take stock of the cockpit. Bao was flipping between comm channels frantically, trying to get someone to confirm receipt. Joker morosely noted that the incoming fleet chatter had died, too. Heise was still out and probably wasn't coming back anytime soon, but Niemi had made it back to his seat.

He checked rear clearance, and gunned the main engines. The effect was disappointing, even with nearly 50% of all auxiliary power diverted to the engine. The Normandy was still drifting backwards, if considerably slower. Less than 200 km to the Citadel didn't need fast, though. Trying to change direction of travel out of the gravity well just made things worse.

For a couple agonizing minutes Joker watched systems powering down as Adams and Gabby diverted more and more resources to propulsion. Even the lights dimmed slightly and still the drift continued.

Traynor's channel flared. {Sir, Traynor. I'm sorry, EDI's not up… Gabb— Engineer Daniels and I can only guess at what this is.}

Joker patched Adams back in, too. {Guess away, Specialist. We obviously can't get away. Can we handle this otherwise?}

{Traynor noticed that the Crucible seems to be lined up with Charon, sir,} Daniels replied through Traynor's channel when the other woman did not immediately speak up.

Joker's face went ashen. {No.}

{I'm afraid so, sir,} Traynor said, taking over again, {So our best guess is that a whole fuckload of energy is going to be moving that way, soon. Minutes, at most. And no, we won't survive it. Sir.}

{…Fuck,} Adams intoned solemnly.

Joker checked his panels. 120 km to the Citadel. Less than 7 seconds if powered off, and the drift was picking up again even with 83% in the engines and the hull close to overheating. No way to get through whatever was coming, no way to escape even at nearly at the speed of—

His fingers flew on the HI, entering equations to verify his guess in the few seconds he could spare. The beam had to have a clear shot through the system, it _had_ to. He punched in a route trying to match it exactly all the way to Charon. _I'll have a couple seconds to react, at least._

{Sam, Gabby, strap in. Adams, in 30 seconds remove the power reroutes so that I can FTL.}

The engineer started yelling an objection, but Joker had made up his mind. {Do it. 25 seconds, Adams.}

He flipped the intercom. {Going FTL. I repeat, FTL. Everyone strap in _immediately_.}

The slowest 10 seconds of Jeff Moreau's life ticked down, his fingers ready on the engine controls. A tiny flicker in lighting, and the FTL check lit up full green with the exception of the navigation system, but the bypass he and EDI had built worked its magic moments later, turning the last check green. He tapped the switches.

…Nothing.

Then, a violent shudder growing in force. The entire ship was vibrating and creaking, but the drift dropped to almost zero.

_Coulda really used you here, EDI._

The familiar FTL lurch. The gravity well behind them had disappeared, and that instant the Normandy shot forward accelerating toward FTL speeds. Joker's hands danced furiously on the HI, knowing that he had less than 10 seconds to make a minuscule adjustment—millionths of a percent—and abort the acceleration to avoid smashing straight into the Charon relay.

_Sure hope the beam wasn't planning on going through any planets._

At 6 seconds, the course correction was in. He went to shift the shields and dampers to support emergency deceleration.

With 0.38 seconds left before course correction via deceleration would have diverted the _Normandy_ from the path of the beam, the faster-traveling immense energy blast caught them, collapsing their FTL tunnel instantaneously and dumping the ship back to normal space in complete freefall. A split-second of terror managed to bore into the crew before the uncontrolled, tumbling deceleration made consciousness irrelevant.

* * *

Mkawa's awareness returned just as he was floating off the walkway he'd been struggling to cross. Vast explosions somewhere shuddered the structures around him, but only caused light swaying in his immediate surroundings. Apart from his right hand, he still couldn't feel his limbs, or skin, so he guessed he'd not been under for more than minutes at most. The crushing weight of gravity was gone, and the familiarity of weightlessness struck him almost immediately. All he needed to figure that out was his inner ear. True weightlessness…probably meant that this part of the Citadel had broken off. He glanced around and saw no obvious decompression or leaks, so either the hull was intact or the barriers were holding. There was still some power in this sector as well, judging by a few panels remaining lit near where he and Greta had come in.

_Safe. For now._

Recollection struck, and he tried to maneuver himself to face the direction of the inner tower using the limited mobility of his single working arm. With some difficulty, he managed to steady himself against one of the previously moving platforms.

"Aren't you one lucky fucker," he said with an inaudible chuckle, as the previously doomed soldier was closing the last 20 meters of the deadly fall toward the erstwhile floor gliding like a feather. Definitely Alliance armor, he saw. The belt had come loose and fell very slowly a little further up.

When the body started turning around after a brief encounter with the wall, nearly at the floor, Mkawa couldn't say whether he was more shocked by the amount of blood droplets floating away from the abdomen, or the fact that she was very clearly, despite the burns covering nearly half the face, _her_.

* * *

Kasumi knew all the tricks to staying conscious in extreme-G scenarios. She hadn't had any practice doing so while paralyzed but somehow did manage to hold onto reason until, with a sudden lurch, the gravity returned toward normal…and then vanished altogether.

The slab on her had enough inertia that it didn't take off on its own but their parts were reversed, Kasumi now more laying on the slab than the other way around. The lightheadedness following the removal of the slab's weight from her arm and leg informed her that her injury assessment had been woefully optimistic.

At least the view was good, the panoramic windows stretching right in front of her. She was going to try to enjoy it until her muscles obeyed her again, perhaps, and then she could decide—

She was a worldly and _under_worldly woman. She thought she had seen and heard almost everything pain and tragedy could offer, on stage, books, vids, music, and the very, very real life. She felt little would surprise her.

Still, she thought as she shrugged off her resigned, lightheaded reverie and used what little strength she had in her hand to pull herself off the slab to make herself visible to her rescuer, she didn't mind learning she'd been wrong.

The most terrifying and simultaneously most heartrending sound in the galaxy turned out to be a krogan screaming for his mother.


	4. Chapter 3

_A/N: There's a note about asari naming conventions in the codex._

* * *

"Hey.

"Hey, can you hear me?

"C'mon, _sobrinita_, she's going to have my fucking balls if I come back without you."

The girl didn't stir, but she was still breathing peacefully. James was pretty sure she was just out cold, and didn't want to disturb the makeshift seal to re-examine her. They'd risked enough exposure quickly making sure her face was OK and cleaning out the big pieces of diglass or whatever it was the plates were made of.

_She really **would** have them, too._

It'd just been bad luck all around. They'd rocked up to that point, running from site to site with the girl working her magic keeping comms up basically solo and his co-opted squad making sure she stayed safe. They'd been trying to get the orbital antenna back online when one of the cables snapped and struck her in the back, pushing her out into the line of fire for a second before she could duck back down. With the violent strike of the cable hosing her shields, the shot had actually gotten through.

Good thing the bastards had powerful guns, he mused; a lighter round might have changed direction rather than just going straight through the faceplate. Whipped her head something evil though, and girl couldn't weigh buck fifty in full gear so she'd gotten flung almost to the other wall.

"LT?" Rivers said somewhere above him, in a slightly vacant voice.

James looked up at the corporal to find her staring up at the sky, with enemy fire blazing all around. "Get your head down, Rivers!"

Snapping out of her trance and ducking down, Rivers poked the muzzle of her rifle upwards and followed it with her eyes. "Is that good or bad, sir?"

James popped up from behind their little wall to let out a couple bursts at the zombies that were still pouring into the killzone of a plaza in front of them. On the way down he stole a quick glance toward the sky — and dropped straight to the ground, trying to shield Tali's body with his own as well as possible. "Take cover!"

The blast hit only moments later. It wasn't the pressure wave that James was expecting; it felt just like…an electric wind. There was a breeze through him and he smelled ozone, but the only real effect was that despite squeezing his eyes shut tight, his entire perception flashed a bruised purple for a half second.

He willed himself to open his eyes and get back up. Whatever space cancer he'd just gotten wouldn't care if he was hiding whereas his gun was really helpful at keeping the glowy fuckers on the right side of the wall. He _was_ relieved to find that his eyesight was fine as he peeked over the wall.

"Looks like it was good, _joya_," he said, breaking into a guffawing laughter. "I swear, I'm going to get that woman inked on my left tit when we get outta here!"

Rivers, surveying the scene with a grin, punched him in the shoulder. "See that you do, LT!"

James heard Ulyanov and Molina whooping and shuffling closer, but he was unable to tear his eyes away.

The zombies were falling on their faces all around the square, spasming and letting out strange little squeaks on their way down, the circuitry defiling their bodies flickering and dying. The two huge Reapers further out had both stopped firing and even as the little team watched on, one started tilting backwards like a really fucking ugly tree and the other just collapsed straight down when its legs gave out.

James was still laughing, tears in his eyes, when Tali let out a startled squeak and stirred. He dropped on one knee and gently laid a hand on her shoulder.

"_Hush_, you're fine. Stay still for a sec, yeah?"

The quarian's shoulder relaxed at the sound of his voice. "James? I…keelah, I can't see!"

James gently but firmly kept her down and tried to calm her. "You ain't blind. Me and Rivers taped some bandages onto your helmet to cover the hole.

"Almost the whole glass piece was blown away and we didn't really have anything else. It should be airtight and it's got some 'gel and antibacterial on it. You gotta stay still, though, you got tossed around pretty bad. Might've hurt your neck or spine."

Tali had settled down again and James could have sworn he heard a smile in her voice. " It's — _oof!_ — okay, James, I've got a real spine keeping me upright, not a glass stick that breaks at the lightest touch like you humans do.

"Besides, all the suit readings are OK!" she continued, tapping on her omni to get reports into her aurals, "Except the one that says catastrophic environmental exposure."

In mock outrage, James gently nudged her shoulder and shifted back to help her into a sit against the low wall. "Oh, it's like that, is it?"

"I had half a mind to steal you away from that Weegar dude always follows you, but this kind of emasculation I'd have to listen to? I see how you are."

Now Tali actually giggled. "So, no shooting? I assume I'm either dead or we won."

"Think we won, kittycat."

* * *

"_Run_! It's coming down!"

Garrus was already at full sprint when others took up his cry. What few people were left were all breaking into different directions, trying to avoid being under the gigantic construct when it hit the ground. Garrus was running _toward_ the Reaper, relying on an instinctive estimate of the distances.

"_Run!" _He yelled again and, for effect, smacked Javik on the back of the head as he barreled past him. The prothean had fallen on his knees when the pulse struck the Reapers, and hadn't so much as twitched a finger since. Garrus wasn't even sure he was still alive and the violent creaking above vividly reminded him that there wasn't time to find out.

The turian was still quite a ways from where the Reaper's legs were buckling in an impossible angle when the bulk came down with a deafening crash behind him, shaking the ground enough to send him flying on his face. As he was tossed, he tried to cover himself the best he could — uselessly, he knew, if the construct's unimaginable weight landed on him.

A few seconds later, painfully splayed on the ground, he started to hope that he would not be crushed. He pulled off his helmet, spitting out dust and gravel that had filled half of it as he struck the ground. He allowed himself a few moments to recover before slowly forcing himself back up — first up on one knee, then pushing himself up to a squat, leaning on his spurs. The cloud of dust around him was thick enough that even the best vision enhancement combination he could conjure from his visor only afforded him ten meters of visibility. Instead of wandering out blind, he crouched down next to the nearest structure left high enough to provide cover — a wall of some kind — and started flipping through the comm channels.

{This is General Vakarian. Everyone in sectors 54 and 55…and 56, too, report to rally point 5B when it's safe to move. Medical channel is 55c. Officers on 55d. No chatter. Stay _away_ from the Reapers and do not touch them if you can avoid it. Out.}

He had quickly found the long-distance and orbital comms to be down, but the local channels — within half a click at most — were still live though completely without any structured organization. With his broadcast message, the useless overlapping chatter slowly died off, replaced by sporadic acknowledgements, frequent requests for medical assistance, and a few medics and officers reporting in.

After applying some medi-gel on the worst of his wounds, and checking his armor and remaining weapons in the minute or two it took for the dust to become passable, Garrus oriented himself and pushed off the low wall, cautiously heading toward the rally point, his assault rifle drawn and scanning the area around him for husks. Maneuvering around the enormous Reaper corpse proved to be somewhat difficult and by the time he got to the other side, after a few frights caused by shapes emerging from the dust, he had gone from trudging alone to leading a group of over 40 soldiers picked up from along the way. He had been looking for the prothean, too, but nobody had seen him since the Reaper went down.

{This is Rodriguez. The husks are not down! I repeat, the husks are _not_ down! They're…they're somehow fucked up, but _not down_. They _are_ attacking. Out.}

A couple other voices called in almost at the same time. Garrus swore and turned to look at the reaper, rifle immediately unstowed again. To his relief he saw no signs of life in the hulking carcass, but ordered the last men in the column to keep an eye on it.

{This is General Vakarian. Treat all husks as ongoing threats. Reapers are inactive still. If anyone sees Reaper movement, call it in immediately. Out.}

The place had been eerily quiet since the first cheers had died in the collapse of the capital ship, but small arms fire started gradually filling the void from every direction. To Garrus' experienced ear the cadence was comfortingly calm and orderly, not the panic of overrun groups that the end of the fight had been. He had seen the husks writhe and fall to the ground himself, and while whatever downed the Reapers apparently hadn't destroyed the husks altogether, they seemed to have at least been weakened.

His ad-hoc group didn't run into live husks until almost at the rally point.

* * *

Yeoman Jonsson cast his eyes around the med bay for Shepard and after a moment of searching located her in the corner in the opposite end of the packed space. He worked his way slowly and carefully through the crowd, and touched her shoulder lightly.

"Ma'am?"

Jonsson had been slightly concerned when directed to the med bay and seeing her upright, at least, was a relief. Her arm was in a sling and she had a bandage across her forehead but she appeared fine otherwise. She held up a finger and pointed to her ear.

She listened intently for a moment, opening her mouth to get a word in once or twice before finally being able to speak.

"I understand, but I'd…yes. Yes. Chandara can take her for this. Yes. Thank you. …I will. Shepard out."

Jonsson allowed a quick smile to show. "They're allowing you to go then, ma'am?"

"Yes. It looks like it's over, thank all the gods…We're just dealing with clean-up so I'm not strictly needed. Any luck?"

Jonsson had run all over the ship looking for a working shuttle. He'd finally found one – of course in the very last bay, and of course the internal comms had come back online about 15 seconds after that – and sent Liu to get it ready to go.

"It's in F4 whenever you're ready, ma'am."

The gratitude in her eyes was palpable as she squeezed his shoulder. "Thank you, Axel. I have to go find her."

Jonsson nodded and turned to clear her a path through the ward, another conversation letting him know she was right behind him.

"I am, thanks. Yes, I'm going right now. You have the ship, Amita. Lidanya has operative control, but ping Bajic first. Yeah. …Yeah. You too. I'll send Jonsson back up to you. Out."

Jonsson paused for a moment outside the med bay doors to watch the admiral take off running toward the shuttle bay, broken arm or not, and then headed back toward the _Orizaba_'s battered bridge.

* * *

How the man had survived for months without a helmet, Kaidan didn't know. _Someone_ must have mentioned it to him at _some_ point, right? Or did he just decide to leave it off for the most important mission?

_You're one to talk. Didn't notice you bringing it up either._

Someone had definitely been looking out for the guy, though. Kaidan's transport was right behind Anderson's when the former had been sent tumbling through the air by an almost direct hit, and as if out of sheer spite the Reaper's death throes had collapsed it right onto the vehicle, crushing half of it. A couple of soldiers had only just managed to pull Anderson and two others out through the squashed doorway.

Another stroke of luck had been when a turian on his way toward the rally point had decided to see if Kaidan was alive or dead. Kaidan had only been _wishing_ he was dead for about 5 minutes after the explosion or pulse, whatever it was, downed the Reapers and caused him to feel as if his implant had just exploded into a million burning shards.

The turian – Ranas – had half carried Kaidan for a few hundred meters toward the rally point until the human found his legs, just as they stumbled right into the group at Anderson's transport. All three victims from the transport were in such a bad condition that they couldn't be moved, Anderson the worst. The soldiers tending to them were waiting for evac, one of the men straining to somehow keep Anderson's obviously broken skull from suffering more damage while at the same time moving his spine as little as possible.

The man's hands were trembling from the effort when Kaidan shambled over and gingerly crafted a biotic sphere around Anderson's head and neck. The grateful marine rubbed the muscles in his hands, flicked on his comms to rattle off a status report and a new request for VIP evac, and then moved to take a look at the other wounded.

{…Akarian. Treat all husks as…threats. Reapers remain in… If anyone sees Reaper … in immediately. Out.}

As glad as he was to hear a familiar voice, the message startled Kaidan. All his other channels suddenly flared up too, threatening his concentration, but a quick check of stored priority messages let him turn off all but the two designated by Garrus.

Only a few husks were visible from where Kaidan was, but Ranas and the two free marines formed a triangle around the three wounded, Kaidan, and the remaining marine. Gunfire slowly picked up all around them as, presumably, husks started recovering from the blast. Ranas was the first of their guards to open fire.

Kaidan sighed and bit the bullet. {Garrus, this is Alenko. You there?}

* * *

"I fucking knew I shouldn't have been calling them zombies."

Firing into the approaching horde, Rivers let out a manic giggle. "It _is_ all your fault, LT!"

They'd just started to run out of raw jubilation when Molina had seen the first couple stagger upright. The re-reanimated husks weren't particularly dangerous – they really seemed little more than actual corpses. Even the glowy bits were all gone, but that was actually a bad thing with the night approaching.

The bad part was that they looked a lot more like…people, now.

They had even seen one of the huge sown-together monstrosities but without whatever it was that made them tick, it had practically fallen apart on its own trying to stagger toward their firing zone.

Ulyanov was right out. Seeing the husks again, the man had just squatted down next to Tali and kept telling her that everything would be alright every twenty seconds. Truth be told, James was a little worried about Rivers, too. There was a fine line between _trying_ to divert your thoughts from the horrors of reality and actually succeeding in doing so.

The citywide comms were coming back online and Tali, tasked with channel monitoring, reported that command was setting up a five-by-five-click perimeter around the Hammer FOB to regroup, evac, and prepare to start mopping up the husks tomorrow. The map put the perimeter only about 600 meters from their position but it wasn't secured yet, and the route there was an unknown even without a feverish, blind quarian and at least one acute case of CSR.

"Anything?"

Tali tilted her head as if to hear better, and then shook it. "Command has re-established comms with the fleets but they don't really have any shuttles to spare."

"There're some patrols going out," she continued "But there are larger and worse-off groups out there. Our best bet is probably hoping that another group comes nearby on their way to the perimeter. I set a 200 meter beacon."

James nodded and picked off another blackened shape trying to get push itself off the ground. He was almost certain there were fewer now.

Glancing at what remained of his crew, James spoke quietly to Tali. "This keeps up, we might be able to stay here overnight, or risk the trip. You up for moving? You know I'll carry you anywhere."

No answer. James glanced down, and saw the girl's head sway a little.

"Talk to me, _sobrinita_.

"…Tali?"

Tali's head jerked up. "Mmhm…I'm. Okay."

"Uh-huh," agreed James as the quarian's head dropped down to her chest again, and opened up all comm channels he had access to. "Ulyanov, can you keep her safe? Make sure she's breathing? You gotta watch her all the time, got it?"

The big man nodded up at James and leaned closer to Tali, stroking the top of her helmet soothingly.

{Anyone receiving, this is Lieutenant Vega. I have a quarian admiral with severe environmental exposure. Need VIP evac _immediately_. Repeat: quarian admiral needs immediate evac. Out.}

At least Rivers looked a little better, in James' estimate as he glanced around at his dwindling squad. He picked off another husk, carefully spreading out his shots to minimize thermal consumption. He only had 5 clips to–

{What the fuck did you do to her, Vega, you dumb prick? Sit your stupid ass down on your hands, don't fuck it up further and don't fucking move, I'll be right there. Southwest, better not fucking shoot us.}

* * *

"Patching you in, Admiral."

A soft chime told Hannah Shepard that she had joined the co-ordination channel just before voices broke in. The invite had been unexpected.

{Oh god, Hannah, I was worried. Saw _Orizaba_ take that hit straight on. You OK?} Admiral Bajic inquired, sounding genuinely concerned.

Hannah glanced over at Liu, who was maneuvering them toward the _Vilnius_ {I'm fine. We lost comms and engines, fortunately not many people. I'm sorry, I'm not quite up to date on the situation. Did you need me?}

Another voice spoke up, with considerable authority. {Welcome, Admiral Shepard. This is Lidanya. I am currently in operative control. Let me do quick introductions, you're not the only one to just join.}

Matriarch Lidanya, captain of the _Ascension_. So Hackett _was_ MIA.

As if reading her mind, Bajic sent a subchannel message explaining that Hackett was missing and presumed dead. Lakopoulos was the ranking human. The quarians and turians were also down a few of their brass.

{We also have your admirals Lakopoulos and Bajic} the asari continued. {From the quarian fleets admirals Gerrel and Raan, and admiral Rastias co-ordinates the turians. I understand we have an honored guest from our rachni allies, but no connection to the geth?}

A curious sing-song tone came from what Hannah could only assume was the rachni representative – a queen, definitely. It was more a sound than actual words, but at least for her it clearly conveyed that the…speaker…was likewise honored.

Lidanya picked up after a tiny but telling pause. {We're looking into what is going on with the geth. Best we can tell right now is that they're…offline.} Another pause.

{The Crucible seems to have been a success.

{The current situation is that all of the Reaper crafts in Sol are inactive. Our initial scans suggest that they are completely dead, with no trace activity unlike previously encountered deactivated Reapers. We can't afford to take risks, so Rastias has agreed to direct the turian fleets to destroy the weapons and engines of all Reapers.}

The turian grunted an affirmative before Lidanya could move on, {Yes. We also have some craft stationed around the planet to ensure that all possible debris is broken up before it enters the atmosphere, although unfortunately significant pieces may still get through.

{We do not currently have reliable connections planetside but from scans and what little info we have received, it appears that all Reaper craft there were also affected. The quarian fleet is working on re-establishing connections. As soon as that happens, we will start co-ordinating ground logistics.}

Lidanya continued when Rastias quieted, {We currently have three additional priorities: search and rescue of the fleet crafts is handled by the humans. Admiral Lakopoulos?}

The elderly man cleared his throat and spoke tersely. {Yes. We are currently locating survivors and salvageable vessels. I would like to request the quarian fleets for assistance for repairs, your expertise is widely known.}

A slightly smoky but firm voice spoke up, the tiniest bit of digital modulation audible. {This is Admiral Raan. We will assist in any way you need.}

{Good. The second priority,} Lidanya started, {Is the Citadel. The asari will take primary responsibility for stabilizing and evacuating the station as necessary. I would like to request Admiral Shepard to join us on the_ Destiny Ascension_ for this purpose.}

Hannah's breath caught. It was surely too much to hope—

{We have confirmed that your daughter made it to the Citadel from Earth. She reopened the station, and we believe that subsequent to this she also caused the Crucible activation. This was less than one quarter-hour ago, but we have not been able to obtain any further information,} Lidanya phrased very carefully, her normally gruff delivery softening slightly.

Hannah directed Liu to change course to the _Destiny Ascension_. {Thank you, Matriarch. I will join you immediately.}

Lidanya welcomed her, and continued. {The third priority…is something that should not be breached outside this circle for now.}

{We do not currently have any communications outside Sol. The best the science fleet has been able to piece together is that the last, vast energy eruption was directed toward the Charon relay. The relay is, at this time, unresponsive. We have sent a patrol to research the issue, but they are at least 4 hours away still. They will fix the comm buoys as they go.}

This drew a few audible gasps. Each of the admirals understood what it might mean.

{The asari fleet has some quantum communicators which seem to operate correctly, but there have been no responses. This may well be due to pressing reasons at the receiving end. In the meanwhile, I ask that each of you attempt to use your QECs and report results. In spirit of openness I have forwarded our entanglement pair endpoint locations to you, and hope that you do the same so that we may use these resources to the fullest and avoid unnecessary overlap.}

General agreement was followed by Bajic speaking up. {Matriarch, the _Normandy_ had several entanglements, but we lost track of the vessel at the base of the Citadel tower at the moment of the last eruption. We also registered an FTL jump immediately preceding the event. It is possible that _Normandy_ was destroyed, or is otherwise unavailable.}

Hannah almost heard Lidanya's brow raise when Bajic drew breath to continue.

{However, we believe it is possible that the _Normandy_ attempted to perform a microjump, most likely along the path of the energy release. We request that the asari patrol destined for Charon also attempts to locate the _Normandy_.}

Without hesitation, Lidanya agreed. {I will instruct the patrol. Now, we all have things to do. Next conference in 2 hours. Lidanya out.}

* * *

James was quite baffled. He knew Jack hadn't actually meant anything by her tirade, but he certainly had not been expecting the rogue to give him a big wet smooch after all but tearing down the wall Tali was leaning on to get to her and making sure the quarian was still breathing.

He didn't actually manage to move from where he'd been standing — Rivers, Molina and a few of Jack's biotics fortunately handling the husks and Jack tending to Tali — until a familiar, soft asari voice chimed into his aurals.

{James? Is Tali alright?}


	5. Chapter 4

Joker pushed the hatch. It jerked open with a hydraulic hiss. First just a crack, and then it slid to the side to cover the slightly worn paint next to the hatch where air locks typically attach.

Gingerly he walked down the steps from the hatch and marveled the amount of engineering that had gone to the _Normandy_. The incredible engines, the gorgeous shape you could almost see transforming into one of the herons that were taking off in the distance. Soaring across the skies, diving and dipping.

Electric crackle caught his attention. Enormous bursts of sparks were cascading all over the frame, fireworks celebrating his skilled landing. He kicked at the dirt the ship had plowed up, the grooves going back for at least 10-20 meters, all the way up to the side of the rocky mountain. It'd be fun to do a liftoff into one of those, it'd put you right into a loop and then you could roll and fly to the skies.

The place was pretty nice. The temperature was perfect, and it didn't feel too humid, one of those places that made his joints ache. Reminded him of the set for "Vaenia 10: Primitive Instincts"…the double moons looking on while the camera pans toward the mountaintop…

He was staring at the dragons in the horizon when he heard EDI and Liara descend the earthen ramp, followed closely by Garrus with his funny stiff-legged walk. They were marveling at the lush scenery, wide-eyed, enjoying the sights and smells. Even the wind in the leaves sounded perfect. He had chosen well – although, thinking about it, the mountain on the left should be higher and maybe it could have snow. He nodded, satisfied, at the snowy slopes.

Pressly would hate it. Joker knew just by looking at the man that he would start a sermon about 'retaining it as nature intended' or some nonsense. Joker had a clever plan, though…Pressly couldn't resist a good river, he'd swim and swim and swim all the way to the end. Joker chuckled at Pressly's swim trunks – why would you even need swim trunks? The man was already halfway up the rapids when he looked back, and approaching the loop.

It was just perfect, man. EDI goosed him and snuggled up like Maninka Reles and the hanar in the end of "Blasto 3". A row of houses right here, they could all live there together, and tell nobody. Just activate the cloaking device whenever they had to hit the main system for supplies and nobody could ever find it, ever.

Everybody was trying to get out of the doorway at once now, it made Joker chuckle, but he had to tell them to go back in for a little bit 'cause he still needed to build the houses. Even with all the lumber in Normandy's bay – it was gigantic when you actually went in through the hatch on the top deck — he was still going to need weeks to get it all set up.

He was almost worried for a moment, but Legion saved the situation! To the great amusement of all, he split into 6 little robots that transformed from his body parts, and off they went in a cute little line, in and out, bringing the bricks and glass panels out. They couldn't actually whistle so they had little speakers pop up on the tops of their heads and play an old workman tune. Tali wanted to adopt one and tried to hide it in her hat but the others noticed, and then she laughed so hard she fell over and started tanning.

Joker lied down on the divan, with EDI and Gabby sitting leaning against the side, swishing their feet in the cool water of the waterfall river, and talking about girl things. Behind him, even stick-butt Garrus had loosened up and was barbecuing some marsupials and quipping at the guys gathered around the poker table.

Perfect.


	6. Chapter 5

There was no such thing as a long goodbye. There was only before, and after.

When the after came, before was no longer.

After.

The last messages that had gotten through from the fleets before orbital communications were severed had been dire. The fleets would be destroyed. The only remaining question was how long it was going to take and more than an hour was highly optimistic estimate.

The assembled forces needed food, water, and rest; or just a moment with their friends and comrades. Few had time.

Shepard had walked straight up to the command post from the shuttle with Liara close in tow, greeting all those who she knew, and returning the salutes of those who knew her. The Hammer commanders had been called in. Knowing the briefing would take exactly six minutes, Liara had given Shepard a quick peck on the neck and stolen away to forage a few rehydration pouches, stimpacks, and whatever else she could stuff in her pockets.

On her way back, she nabbed Tali into a fierce embrace just as the girl was stepping into the subways with James, and had the marine swear he'd look after the quarian. Wrex was already on his way out with a thundering horde of krogan. He stopped long enough to nod deeply at Liara. She smiled at the old softy.

Jack, too, was already somewhere in the field. Everyone else…who knows where. _Goddess._

Garrus, Javik, and Kaidan were all going with Shepard in the third wave. All were standing side by side despite their differences, just a little removed from the throng of officers listening to final orders. Each hugged her tight—even the prothean, to her great surprise.

When Shepard climbed on top of a squat brick wall, surveying the commanders of the Hammer squads, everyone hushed. Anderson had walked over to Liara, to watch with her.

Liara didn't hear the few words Shepard said. Liara was no longer there.

Somewhere, the crowd surely roared and they surely left with determination and hope in their eyes.

All Liara had was nothing, and Eevy. Liara felt her come close, and opened the nothing just long enough for her love to slip in.

Nothing became everything. At the end of time, there is only before.

* * *

_"I'll always come back."_

Tears streaming and lips tingling, Liara stood until Shepard was out of the gate. She slumped against the ruined wall behind her, and cried, and cried.

"Hey…" a quiet voice, a calloused hand lightly touching her cheek and lifting her chin.

The man helped her up and dried her eyes. She took the offered silky cloth to clean her ventilatory passages.

Coats looked her in the eye. "Let's go keep her safe."

* * *

The field was absolute carnage. Liara was very, very glad that she was too far to see it well. She had foolishly thought that she would feel better if she was able to keep a close eye on everything—she had hated the idea of the faraway cannons—but the very first overwhelming strike from the massed Reapers had turned the early Hammer strikes into an unimaginable horror.

They didn't really have much of a plan or, leastwise, the famous battles and celebrated warlords she had studied always seemed to have very elaborate and detailed ones. There were four waves of around five thousand troops each, the first two of which were meant to strictly cause and soak destruction. They were forbidden to enter the lift. The first two waves went in two minutes apart, from different directions.

Everything hinged on the Reapers thinking that they and the endless rows of bodies and pods they guarded were under attack, not the lift.

Everything, Liara thought quietly, hinged on the Reapers thinking they could handle the attack.

The third wave, Shepard's, was the primary entry attempt. Out of all of them, only 200 people were authorized to enter the lift. Everyone else protected them, made way. The third wave entered five minutes after the second. A fourth wave was identical to the third, another five minutes after.

They suspected the lift would close almost immediately after someone used it. They were hoping for 20-30 of the elite to make it in before that. Only after and if the lift closed was retreating allowed.

Forces elsewhere were co-ordinating desperate strikes at valuable targets in an effort to distract from the main target. All told, there were about a quarter million troops on the ground in the London area, and similar numbers in Madrid, Paris, and Bucharest, all of which hosted significant Reaper logistics concentrations.

There was one final option that only very few knew about—Liara wished she hadn't been one. If the battle for Earth was lost, any remaining fleets would be given orders to retreat out of the system. At the same time, the Charon relay would be caused to explode. The estimated enemy losses were to be 80-85% of their entire force. Allied losses would be the entire solar system, and everyone still in it. It was uncertain whether the remaining galaxy could take on even the fifteen percent of the Reapers, but she told herself it was better than to do nothing.

* * *

The first two waves and the artillery with Liara and several other biotics helping under Coats' brilliant tactical supervision had managed to bring down all but one of the smaller Reapers, but both early Hammer waves had been decimated. Two gigantic dreadnoughts remained.

Nearly all comm channels were useless beyond 50 meters, and the few repeaters the engineers had managed to set were being annihilated. Coats said they had been getting jamming throughout the occupation, but nothing like this. Liara had come to know quite a bit about communication technologies by necessity and, if anything, this seemed more like somehow dissipating the signal than interference; as if they were transmitting through stone instead of air.

_Fascinating, doctor, but focus._

Liara had felt Shepard's group enter the battlefield proper. She had been saving her resources for this moment, and while her connection to her lover was far from precise, it was good enough for Coats to call the strikes, whether to destroy or to distract, trying to keep Shepard safe.

Liara smiled a small private smile remembering when she had first told Shepard about being able to feel her from afar for some time after a melding. Shepard teasing her about seeing a floating trail of hearts—and then drawing the confused asari a little 'heart' to show her what she actually meant. Liara's smile widened a little, recalling that she had remarked the symbol really rather looked like another part of anatomy altogether and where the conversation had gone from there.

Liara carefully peeked from her hole, and judged the distance to the cannon. The engineers had fitted most of the artillery platforms so that they could be moved rapidly, and that had kept a fair amount of them still operational. The few traditional ones with wheels or those belt things or legs had probably already been destroyed.

The Reapers themselves rarely turned to open on the artillery positions but their flying drones and ground troops were unrelenting, and despite the advantage of being able to use some segments of the old underground train tunnels the units were growing very sparse. Even Coats had just gotten hit when Liara started her dash toward the positions nearest the lift itself. Liara had turned back toward the man but he'd just waved her on with her free hand, clutching his hip with the other.

Still a good 150 meters from the flank position, the emptiness struck Liara. Her legs were swept from under her midrun, leaving her splayed on the ground. The…trail of hearts, it was gone. Keeping a grasp on Shepard's presence had been straining Liara's biotic, mental, and emotional resources, but it was not a lapse of her concentration. The presence was just gone, like a switch.

Then, the tiniest pinprick. Liara still felt Eevy. Somewhere, far and dim like stars in a day sky, but somewhere. _She must have made it to the lift._

Letting out a heavy sigh, Liara tried to take comfort in the thought that Shepard was, at least, away from the fiercest fighting if not exactly safe. She calmed her breathing and shuddered, untangling her concentration from the tiny echo of her love and letting Shepard go into the unknown. She recited a small, useless prayer and sprinted toward the low wall she had been running toward.

Even as she was tumbling behind the ruined wall, Reapers screeched like nothing before. They sounded almost angry. Liara poked her head around some debris and saw the two enormous ones turn toward where the lift was—

—Where the lift _had_ been. The pillar was gone.

* * *

Liara had no idea how long it had been since Shepard went up when the blast happened. It had been a mad scramble to start regrouping the forces now that their play was revealed. The comms were still mostly down and runners were being sent as a last resort, but at least the twenty thousand elite soldiers of the Hammer waves were good enough at warcraft that the remnants had started to self-organize only moments after the lift disappeared.

The artillery was trying to concentrate on shielding retreating groups; still too far, Liara did not really have a good overview of the situation but it looked like someone had realized to pull most remaining transports back into better cover, and a few vehicles were shuttling to the front and the rear, probably carrying injured back. No…_wounded_, she reminded herself.

The Reapers themselves were advancing, picking their way almost delicately, but there seemed to also be a huge influx of their husk armies onto the Hammer approach routes. Glimpsed skirmishes showed the allied forces still remaining in combat slowly retreating, the troops in the front covering the retreat behind them.

As unlikely as victory seemed, Liara was glad that people were still at least trying to help their comrades, even if it all turned out to be for nought. The Reapers didn't stop to hel—

One of the asari gunners screamed a warning right next to Liara, drawing her attention to the sky. She barely had time to register the downward motion when she was engulfed in an explosion of the brightest, most vivid pink she had seen. It was quite like looking straight into the sun, but without the lingering pain when her vision returned almost in the next instant.

She quickly tried to check herself for injuries and satisfied she had no new ones to add to the ones she'd already gotten, she turned back toward the gunner and noticed the nearly complete silence. The gunner had moved to the plating shielding the cannon, and was peeking over it. Liara stepped next to her and followed suit.

A mighty roar of celebration rose all around her as they watched the Reapers flickering and freezing in place; The flyers were careening uncontrollably and even the husks that she could see below were crumpling on the ground. When the capital ships—the true Reapers—collapsed, so did Liara.

The comms coming back to life pulled her out of whatever trance she had been in for the last…she didn't quite know how long. Around her, the few remaining gunners were back to charging the cannon and for a moment she was afraid that she had dreamed the victory. Still sitting exactly where she had slumped, she tried to get her bearings.

The comm chatter about the husks getting back up and the absence of the towering Reaper tails in the sky clarified the situation a little…it hadn't been a dream, at least. Shaking her head to get rid of the daze, Liara pushed herself back up.

_The husks are not entirely reaperized, perhaps that could—unless the larger ones merely take longer to restart?_

Unlike the gunners, who had apparently been busy converting the cannon to a smaller-impact rapid-fire setup and were now firing at what she assumed were the less-protected husks, Liara was actually comforted to see one of the creatures slowly make its way toward them from the side. Telling the fire team she'd take care of it, Liara let the blackened shape shamble close before shooting it full of holes.

A cursory look at the husk confirmed her suspicion. All Reaper technology seemed to be inactive, dead…although that raised some ugly questions about what was left to fight.

Imparting her information to the fire team calmed them down enough, though one assured that she was going to keep a close watch on the enormous Reaper corpse on the ground—_Goddess, hopefully people were not underneath when it fell_—when a familiar voice rattled on one of the long-distance channels.

{…, call it in immediately. Out.}

Quickly selecting the direct channel to Garrus, Liara was yelling even before the connection was established.

{…rrus!}

A heavy pause preceded the turian's reply. {I'm so sorry, Liara. We got separated, I couldn't get back to her.

{But nobody else could have gotten up there. It's got to be her,} Garrus said, the desperate hope in his voice so clear that it melted away Liara's rage.

{She made it up, Garrus,} she said quietly.

{She did? Is she OK? Did—}

Liara interjected quickly. {I am unsure, I have not heard from her— It is…complicated. I only know she made it.}

All Liara heard on the other side was a strange, quiet gurgling sound. {Garrus? Have you heard from any others? You do not seem to be seriously injured yourself.}

The turian cleared his throat twice before speaking. {No. I mean yes, I'm alright. I'm pretty sure Javik is gone, and Anderson's transport got a direct hit. Anyone else I haven't seen, alive or dead.

{The casualties are…really bad down here.}

A priority message on the Hammer emergency channel alerted Liara. {Garrus, I must go. I— Please stay safe, I shall call you again shortly.}

Without waiting for a reply, she switched channels. {James? Is Tali alright?}

* * *

"Well fuck me sideways! Or not, being family and all. Humans don't approve of that either, do they?"

Hannah's jaw slacked when the gravelly voice assaulted her right as she stepped on board the search and rescue shuttle about a half hour after she had arrived onto the _Destiny Ascension_. The asari aide escorting her—almost certainly named Ami—seemed to do little better. She'd frozen in the middle of a step.

It's not that Hannah thought all asari demure shrinking violets—everyone knew their reputation—or that she was unaccustomed to coarse language. It was just…well, some lively people were described as whirlwinds or tempests, even Hannah herself when she was younger…but this one was more of a hobnailed mallet.

"But damn if the girl doesn't look just like you…a little skinny maybe, ha! Spitting image. If I was a couple centuries younger… Ain't hard to pick you from a crowd, even if you weren't the only human!"

Ami had recovered slightly faster than Hannah, and was trying to fill the brief pause with something…normal. She looked around the small space for support, but the commandos lining the interior evidently found the scene hilarious.

Her cheeks purpling, Ami gestured toward the asari already striding toward them. "Admiral Hannah Shepard, may I introduce the Matriarch Aeth—"

"Just call me Thee, Hannah," the matriarch cut in, pushing past the aide and grabbing Hannah in a cigar-, pear-, and vanilla-scented embrace. Hannah awkwardly hugged her back with her free arm.

"—yta."

Taking a step back, Hannah stammered a greeting and took a moment to turn toward both rows of commandos and greeted each. The asari returned her nods, and she was just about to see if she could weasel herself into one of the seats when Aethyta grabbed her hand.

"Come, got seats and booze here for you," the matriarch said, dragging Hannah toward the front.

Hannah took a seat—indeed stocked with a bottle of something—while Aethyta ordered Ami out and thumped the pilot's seat apparently as a signal to get going. Behind her, the commandos finished strapping themselves in.

"Now, let's go find your girl."

As the asari took her seat, Hannah blurted the question that had occupied her thoughts ever since Lidanya invited her aboard. "You think we'll find her? Have you heard anything?"

"Fu—" had already formed, but even Aethyta noticed the raw emotion just under the admiral's admirably composed surface, and paused to look into Hannah's eyes. The matriarch clasped Hannah's good hand between her palms.

"We will," she said, with earnest conviction and steel flashing in her eyes.

"If I didn't trust that Shep…Eevy can handle anything, she'd be nowhere near my little one."

The women sat there for a moment, hand in hand.

"Have you heard anything from Liara?"

Aethyta grinned wide. "She's alive, in London. I just got a message that she had called the quarians for some medical thing. I hope it's not about Little Sister," she finished, grin fading for a moment.

Hannah was confused. "Little sister?"

"Tali, the quarian girl," came the clarification.

"Ah! Hope not." Hannah did know Tali, though the idiom was strange. She filed it away for later examination.

Eevy had known Liara for over 3 years, Hannah knew, but the mother had never had the chance to meet the pair. Hell, she hadn't even seen her daughter in person for four years. Hannah had tried to do her best to learn about Liara, but videos and the rare calls or messages from her daughter only gave her the most cursory impression.

Still, the matriarch seemed nothing like what little Hannah did know about Liara.

Hannah cleared her throat. "I…I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with these things and the last few years haven't exactly been great for keeping in touch. You're one of Liara's mothers? Is that how it works?"

Aethyta treated herself to a throaty chuckle. "Don't feel bad…even I had trouble keeping up. And no, I'm not a mother. I'm her father."

Hannah looked nonplussed, leaving Aethyta to supply further detail. "Just like with humans, whichever has the baby growing inside her is the mother. The father just contributes DNA."

Hannah nodded. Simple enough.

"I suppose it's clearer with humans. Are you bonded with Eevy's…father?"

Hannah found herself slightly flustered. "Yes. Sorry…I haven't thought about… I've been trying not to think about Henry. He's the science officer on a Rim mission. They've been in the dark for…god, almost five years now. They were supposed to arrive back in the known space in early…early next year. We have no idea if they've managed to avoid the Reapers—or if they even know about them. Guess he'll be in for a bit of a shock when he comes back."

Aethyta nodded, and then wrinkled her brow – the asari had no eyebrows, but Hannah noted two muscles moving in a similar manner where the human brow was—thinking out loud.

"So, if Eevy and Little Wing have children…if Liara carries the child, then Liara will be the mother, and Eevy will be the father. But if Eevy becomes pregnant, then they will both be mothers!"

Aethyta beamed at Hannah, and added conspiratorially: "But we'll be grandparents either way."

Hannah couldn't but laugh at that, and the asari squeezed her hand a little tighter. "Thank you for helping me, …Thee."

"Wouldn't miss it for anything."

Moments later, their shuttle still making its way through the Ascension's escort and a good 10 minutes from the Citadel's wreckage, their first target, the matriarch's confident smile suddenly turned into a look of intense concentration as she pushed her nonintegrated aural deeper.

Hannah felt like her heart had stopped.

A huge grin spread on Aethyta's face, and she smooched Hannah right on the nose before declaring that, fuck yes, Eevy was alive.

* * *

Kal was staring agape at the devastation spreading in every direction underneath him. He tried to hold on to the joy of victory, but a great sadness was threatening to eclipse it. Quarians understood the toll of exile all too well, and to Kal it seemed awfully uncertain whether this planet could still be made habitable.

On top of the existing devastation, much of the debris from the fighting in space was large enough or hard enough to make it through entry into the atmosphere. The turians had requested and been given additional ships, but they could barely keep up with splitting the biggest hunks by the look of things. Kal's shuttle pilot had twice been forced to evade pieces quite vigorously.

There weren't really any landmarks left to navigate by, but Kal's omni had been updated to translate geolocation information. According to it, they were quite close to the site chosen for the antenna when a frantic Shala'Raan spoke on his direct command channel.

{Captain Reegar, I need you to— …Tali'Zorah is injured. You must go get her.}

Kal was already forwarding the attached coordinates to the pilot. Years of conforming to military life allowed his voice to stay calm and level despite his alarm.

{Admiral Raan, I will be there in 4 minutes to help in any way I can. What has happened?}

{According to Dr. T'Soni's message—I have no idea how she got my private channel—her face panel was shot, and is completely broken. She needs to be evacuated,} the admiral pleaded.

Hearing Kal's gasp, Raan quickly continued, {She wasn't hit herself, Kal, just the helmet. But she may be suffering from the impact, and her suit has been completely compromised. We need to get her to a clean room immediately. Bring her to my ship. The medical sector here is probably in the best shape until the hospital ships arrive.}

Relieved that the immediate injury was less severe than he had feared, Kal quickly calculated distances.

{Yes ma'am. We will be on the Tonbay in 20-25 minutes.}


	7. Chapter 6

_A/N: Comm networks expanded on in the Glossary._

* * *

{Dr. T'Soni…I–}

The built-like-a-fucking-god jarhead war machine was actually _scared_ of their small archeologist? Perking her ears at Vega's stammer but unwilling to turn away from keeping Tali stable and comfortable, Jack just punched Vega in the shin and pointed to her ear instead. Quick on the uptake, Vega gratefully patched her in. _OK, she **was** a huge bad-ass, but still…_

{James, is Tali alright? Everyone else?} asked the asari again, quietly but with uncharacteristic pointedness.

Jack glanced back at the hulking man and decided to reply in his stead. {Hey, Blue. We're good and Tali's OK, but we need to get her to the vet. Fuckers blew her windshield right off, so she got a faceful of whatever infectious shit they got here. _Catastrophic Environmental Exposure_ as the suit puts it. Hell of a concussion too, at least. She's pretty out of it, though she did seem to recognize me. Vega said she was moving and talking earlier so guess that part's cool.

{None of these Alliance fucks has even replied. Tali's useless and her security is tighter than Vega's cunt, so I can't get to the quarians through her gear.}

{Jack! Good to hear your voice!} exclaimed Liara, having deduced that Tali was mostly threatened by a large-scale acute infection.

{You too, Blue.}

{Give me a moment, Jack. I believe I may be able to get through to the Flotilla.}

{I'm really sorry about Tali,} Vega blurted after a few seconds of silence. {I couldn't protect…I mean they just— and I tried—}

{Oh shut the fuck up,} Jack broke in, punching Vega in the shin for emphasis, {you're the fucking reason _any_ of you are still alive. Everybody in the fucking _quadrant_ is dead but your dumb asses. The fuck you apologizing for? We ain't got time for this shit. You're awesome; deal with it.}

{Yes, thank you for keeping her safe, James,} Liara echoed, relief and a hint of a smile in her voice. {I will attempt to reach Admiral Raan; she will ensure this happens as quickly as possible, I am certain. I have your coordinates; can a shuttle land close enough?}

{Whole goddamn city's bombed so flat that I can see fucking China from where I stand, Blue,} was Jack's assessment.

{…You mean that there _is_ adequate space for landing,} the asari ventured. {Stay on this channel, I will update you as soon as I can.}

{'K,} muttered Jack, glancing around to catch the eye of one of the bios to remind the amateurs to refuel and doing a double-take on Vega.

"Oh hell no. You are _not_ fucking blushing," she said incredulously, reducing their small group to giggles for a few precious moments before somberness crept back in.

Vega, trying to save the remnants of his self-esteem, decided to go patrol the landing zone. She caught him stomping off from the corner of her eye and flashed a grin to herself.

Tali's stats were still virtually unchanged, and the girl squeezed back when Jack took her hand again. She still did not seem to be altogether conscious; Jack suspected that neither injury would have been too bad alone, but the combined effect was somehow much worse.

{Jack? I was able to secure a transport. I do not know their exact position, but I am sure they will not take very long to get to you,} Liara confirmed after a short wait.

{You're the best, Blue,} Jack said, standing up. {Captain Awesome is standing right in the middle of the LZ, they can't miss it.}

Liara started to reply, puzzled, {Why is a— Oh, you mean James. Good, just in case they need direction.}

Vega, recovered, tried to break in, {You OK yourself, Dr. T'Soni? Heard from anyone else?}

{I…am well, James. Shepard made it to the Citadel but I have not heard from her since–}

{She's fine, Li,} Jack interjected reassuringly.

Her voice tight, Liara continued after a tiny pause. {I hope so. I did speak to Garrus; he said he was alright, but that Javik was…probably dead, as well as Admiral Anderson.

{The battle looked quite bad down there. I have heard from no-one else, but comms are only just becoming stable again.}

Jack's expression darkened at the mention of Anderson. She didn't really know the man but as hard as it had been to get Sanders to admit to herself that she still wanted him, the woman would be devastated. If _she_ was still alive. Fuck_._

{Well, I'm glad at least dinosaur boy is still with us,} she muttered, trying to peer at Tali through the little slits of remaining glass not covered by the adhesive bandages and unconsciously fiddling with the tip of her ponytail.

{Garrus? Yeah,} Vega supplied helpfully, as if asking for himself. {You able to get to the safe zone OK, Dr. T'Soni? You should head there.}

{Yes,} the asari assured them. {I am technically already inside the perimeter, but it is not secure yet.}

{Find us a good spot nice and center, Blue. We'll be there in a bit and we'll figure this shit out. Jack out.}

Jack glanced up at Vega, who had patrolled himself back over to the wall while they talked. The lieutenant had split four of the biotics and his two remaining soldiers into three pairs, one to secure each street leading to the plaza, with the remaining biotic—Kweli, or something like that—tasked to keep an eye out for the shuttle from the middle.

Vega, with his wider view, tried to cover the remote possibility that someone might try through the few remaining windows and holes in the ruins circling the plaza. The nutjob was still hugging his knees over in the corner where he'd fled when Jack bodily flung him to the side to get to Tali.

Vega peeked over the wall at Tali and her. "She still good?"

"Yup."

"Still out of it though?"

"Yup."

"It's…I was pretty sure we were going to be done for earlier," Vega started in a low, confessional voice.

She really fucking hated the confessional voice…half the time it was assholes crying about boring nonsense shit, and the other half it was assholes trying to fuck her. She decided to humor the man, though, and glanced up.

"Shepard's saved the fucking galaxy, at least Dr. T'Soni and Garrus are OK, us three… I mean, we lost _so_ many people just today that we'll be counting tags for years but we're still here.

"It's dumb but I feel like, I dunno, maybe most of us…Shepard's crew, I mean… Like we're gonna walk away from here and live happily ever-fucking after."

She checked Tali's stats one more time before looking up at the man.

"What's that dumb fucking toast you jarheads think sounds profound as shit? _There's few like us and they're all dead,_ or whatever?"

Ignoring the barbs, Vega just nodded.

"Eevs took us all for a reason," She continued after studying Vega for a moment.

"There's even _fewer_ like us. The ones who aren't are all dead."

* * *

{Alenko! Glad you're still alive. Are you alright?}

Kaidan was a little surprised that the turian sounded _genuinely_ glad. {I'm OK, Garrus. Need a checkup, nothing major. Anderson's really bad, though, we need to get him out right now. Marines called for a VIP evac, but we don't even have an ETA, and my Spectre status is worth shit when there just aren't any ships to commandeer dirtside and I can't contact the fleets. Got anything we can use?}

{Give me a moment, I'm going to see if I can get through to the fleets. The bandwidth is swamped,} Garrus added apologetically.

{Of course,} Kaidan replied, simultaneously nodding to the marine medic's mouthed question of whether he was working on evac. He muted the channel to tell the man to keep trying as well. Chances that they would be able to fit all three in a single shuttle were pretty slim.

The gunfire was dying down around them, the husks apparently dispatched. Ranas and one of the humans—sergeant Marks, according to his ID chip response—carefully shuffled back, closer to Kaidan. The remaining marine was scanning the perimeter, rifle at the ready.

Noting the expectant looks from his impromptu squad, he mentally rechecked his control over the sphere keeping Anderson safe before devoting a little more time to survey their surroundings.

Everything around them, right on the edges of the heaviest fighting, had been laid low. It was a good 700 meters further away that he saw the first intact walls, though even they seemed to be the only ones remaining of their buildings. All that he could see was covered in the fine dust that the falling Reaper had sent in the air.

Visibility was getting better, most of the dust already settled, but the view was almost enough for Kaidan to hope it had floated around a little longer. The fighting had been bad—and that was using the word 'fighting' liberally. For the most part it seemed that they had been more of a breastplate than a hammer, soaking up damage for the Commander.

Charred and mangled bodies lay strewn everywhere, flung by the terrifying crimson rays or the ground troops the Reapers had kept sending in. It was convenient to be able to make new soldiers on the fly, so much so that in the few moments of battle Kaidan had seen, the Reapers had made only the most cursory attempts at avoiding friendly fire.

The ground, originally probably mostly paved or lawn, had been exposed to the core nearly everywhere, the stone and sand underneath turned to glass and then jagged shards of glass when various pressures hit them. It was surely more than one soldier who died pierced by shards of glass…though, in the scheme of things, it wasn't any worse a way to go than any other.

He did not see many intact vehicles, mechs, or other heavy equipment. The ones remaining on the field were reduced to twisted, charred hunks of scrap and sharp edges.

Anderson's transport, the one they still were next to, was no different. The initial hit had apparently gone through the driver's side, turning most of that corner into a liquid, now slowly cooling and emitting the distinctive ticks of contraction. The rear half was squashed underneath the Reaper, the front slightly off the ground and bulgy, as if in a kid's cartoon.

Turning back to the situation at hand, he quickly figured that the Reaper and the transport gave them enough cover that he could spare one of his three guards to go looking for assistance—or others needing assistance—in the field. If Garrus had anyone he could send from his position, he would.

"Okay. Ranas, you and…Continau? Thanks," he filled in the name supplied by Marks. "You can reposition yourselves so that we use this scrap to eliminate the need for a third, and Marks will do a little patrol over in the west to see if anyone's alive there.

"I'm sure you can handle the husks out in the open? They can't really flank you, and they seemed…weaker than before. Don't go too far, maybe 250 meters on the outside," he finished, Ranas already on his way to inform Continau.

"I'll be fine, Spectre," he confirmed with a nod and, after a moment's hesitation, requested clarification, "Is that the correct address?"

Kaidan nodded and elaborated, "It's an awkward title indeed. Usually we simply go by our names. Alenko is fine."

"Seems a strange way to do it…but you're the Spectre, not me!" the man finished with a smile, and took off westward.

Satisfied that the two guardsmen were correctly positioned, he read the admiral's status info to verify that he was, to his continuing surprise, still alive.

* * *

{Still waiting,} muttered Garrus. {Have you spoken to anyone? I…lost Shepard, but Liara says she made it up to the Citadel. Nothing further after that. Liara is fine, and she just left a note that Vega was with Tali, who is _moderately wounded_ whatever that means. They've also got Jack with them, though I suppose you don't know her?

{Sorry, I didn't mean it like that,} the turian amended immediately.

Kaidan pushed his annoyance back and tried to sound casual, {No problem, Garrus. I've not seen anybody since we got hit. There's nobody alive in the immediate vicinity…I only just got on the comms too,} he finished lamely.

Trying to think of something to say to fill the awkward silence, Kaidan was grateful for Liara's message showing up in his queue, both for the message itself, and for being able to ask Garrus whether he had received the same message about a separate channel.

{Hm?} grunted the turian, {No, what are— Oh, I just got it. Guess the connections aren't quite up to 100% yet. Let's move there.}

Kaidan wasn't able to use his HI for fear of losing his hold on the protective sphere, so he went through the slightly slower voice interface, authorizing his suit and location info and then connecting. The squad roster that showed as he entered the channel listed 7 users, 2 of whom were unconnected.

{Kaidan reporting. No major injury. Thanks for adding Anderson to the roster. I can't really use the HI right now, and no retinal.}

Liara, subdued and distracted but friendly, {Hello…good to hear you're well.}

Garrus grunted his presence.

Vega, with ragged breath, presumably doing something heavy and muscular, {Major.}

[Javik – MIA – Location: N/A Last known location 55-4-f currently occupied by Reaper 55-2.] appeared on the roster alert summary.

A woman's voice Kaidan didn't recognize, venom dripping from her words, {Hey, fuckwad.}

Garrus coughed and reiterated the acute problem, {Anderson needs to be evacuated immediately. Needs surgery, Kaidan? Can you get any status data from him to forward in case that helps?

{Liara, do you have anything? The Primarch's shuttle is coming down and he immediately offered to divert, but it's still at least 13 minutes away. The normal evac flights will start in about 20 minutes.}

{I am sorry, no. The quarians must take Tali immediately, without further conta—} Liara muttered, distractedly, until receiving Anderson's status data brutally focused her mind. {Oh, Goddess. Are you holding him in stasis, Kaidan?}

{No, I couldn't when I got there…and now I don't dare drop this stabilization. Need a doctor on the shuttle, can't move on land. Plain topical or injection medi-gel is no longer effective either,} Kaidan replied slightly more defensively than he intended.

{We're heading for you now, Liara,} the other female voice—Jack, surely—interjected.

Liara sighed, deflated. {I do not think there is anything we can do sooner than the Primarch's shuttle gets there. Orbital and fleet comms are now returning online rapidly, but I am afraid all estimates have been at least 20 minutes.

{The hospital ships have re-entered the system, but even a direct rendezvous would be almost 2 hours, not including the time to orbit. Alliance is designating the _Mont… Mont-real_ for Anderson's initial treatment.}

Garrus confirmed the pick-up details with the turian shuttle before turning his attention toward organizing the forces in the sectors he had commandeered. Liara flicked her primaries back to the fleets just as Kaidan set the now quiet channel to the side.

He'd get a notification if something happened there, and in the meanwhile he was going to try to think of something that he could do to help Anderson.

* * *

The rachni were the ones to make the discovery.

Eris had been quite disconcerted when the queen had approached the commando unit's shuttle; the construction of their ships alone was enough to send shivers down her' back. The insectoids built them completely unlike any craft Eris had ever seen. They looked almost organic, but scans had shown them to be using roughly the same materials as everyone else, with only a few alloy constituents that couldn't be immediately recognized. The ships didn't look insect-like themselves, nor did they seem to be intentionally made to be frightening like some pirate vessels, but there was something about them that caused a visceral reaction in her.

_Asari ships don't look like an asari…why should I imagine theirs any different?_

When the queen actually spoke to her, Eris had surprisingly felt a little less on edge despite the foreignness of the experience. They might be alien in many ways, but they still…interacted with you. They weren't the mindless, unknowable horrors she had been raised by vids to expect. The queen, in particular—not that Eris knew any other rachni—seemed to try to accommodate the other species' customs and expectations.

The exchange itself was quite short: the queen simply informed Eris that she—they—understood that the asari were looking for survivors and that the rachni wished to offer assistance if Eris would permit. The asari gladly accepted the offer, but it took a few moments for her to puzzle out why the queen had felt the rachni needed permission. She found the answer written on the faces of her commandos when she turned back to them.

The Presidium had been reduced to a desolate field of debris, but Eris had orders to comb through every cubic meter of it to find any traces of Commander Shepard. It was believed that the commander had been the one to trigger the device, and that she had been somewhere in the Tower at the time. They had no scan data despite the Citadel having opened its shielding arms prior to that; the immense energies involved with the device had rendered getting any readings from around the Presidium simply impossible.

Eris was still reeling at the enormity of the task in front of them when the rachni and the asari started to explore the edges of the debris field partially inside and partially around what remained of the Citadel. It was with great surprise, therefore, that just a few minutes later Eris received the queen's request for her commandos to be the ones to retrieve the Commander. The queen had remembered the color of that human, as she expressed it, and so had her children. In the end it had been a small rachni vessel, returning from nearly crashing in Earth's atmosphere to join the search, that found the section of the Tower's base quietly floating near the middle of the sphere of debris between the Citadel and Earth.


	8. Chapter 7

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews, PMs, and other contacts, I really appreciate every one, they make this all that much more worthwhile :)_

* * *

"Captain? Looks like that square on the left could be the spot, I see some soldiers," yelled Mas'Ibhan from the cockpit, tilting the shuttle slightly to bring its small viewports better in line with the figures he had spotted.

Captain Kal'Reegar of the Admiralty Board Joint Assets Unit moved cautiously to the windows from his perch on the right side of the cramped crew compartment, supporting himself on the utilitarian metal struts running across the low ceiling. He had to bend low and press right against the small port to see anything through the thick glass; the shuttle was made for war, not sightseeing, and usually even the tiny windows were covered by an ablative lid.

_How can you tell something used to be a square in this?_

Scanning the flattened, ravaged, and burnt field of colorless dust and ash, Kal scolded himself—and not for the first time—for his frantic behavior completely unfitting the rank of a captain. If his squad had noticed, they had been kind enough to discreetly ignore it. Perhaps they were simply in shock still—the battle had lasted only hours but even the quarians, despite mostly being in support roles on the ground, had lost well over a half of their strength. If the figures from the Flotilla were anywhere close to accurate, this one battle had cost them more lives than they had lost to the geth throughout the new conflict. Still, his unit had performed solidly every step of the way, and a glance back at his remaining troops still treated him to the sight of the 6 men and 3 women resolutely scanning the environment with him, or tending to their weapons, armor, or possible minor scrapes they had suffered. The subtle body language the quarians relied on among their own also spoke of confidence bent but unbroken.

_There. Almost hidden behind the small atmospheric flight wing._

"Yes, that must be them! I think I know one of the humans," Kal yelled back and let out a private breath of relief. He had perhaps succeeded in maintaining his captain's façade, but even Shala'Raan's assurances hadn't quite banished the feeling of dread this task had evoked deep within him. Still, it could be _much_ worse. A hint of a reflection off the window pane drew him out of the quicksand of his emotions just before Inan'Amirai, their medic, lightly tapped on his shoulder. The woman was an actual doctor, unlike many of the combat medics who by necessity tended to focus far more on the combat part of their job description. Kal was exceedingly thankful for this, and had tried to communicate this when speaking with her earlier. It was good to have that medical knowledge with them, even if their supplies—

"Captain Reegar, I've looked over our supplies and I believe that it will be safe enough to remove whatever field bandages they have had to use if we can get her into the decontamination compartment. We have sufficient moldable plastic to create a better isolation layer, and we might even be able to take a look at her wounds while re-disinfecting the helmet airspace. It's a little risky," she admitted, "but it's very unlikely that anything in the decon will be worse than what she's already been exposed to."

Kal nodded his assent. "I leave it up to you. It'll be a minute or two for loading her, so I'll run a short decon cycle now to clean this place up a bit."

"Heads up, decon incoming," he instructed the rest of the crew before shutting the cockpit door and opening the decon vents to expel only, and started the cycle. "Do you have any idea what else might be wrong? The humans probably don't have intimate medical knowledge of quarians, but I tend to believe them when they say that she doesn't seem just concussed or fevered."

Dr. Amirai shook her hand in a manner indicating an uncertain educated guess. "I'm not sure…we'll know more when we get to her, but I am slightly concerned that the impact may have somehow affected the protective measures of her suit, if not outright her immune system. It's…not unheard of that contusions can cause lymphatic blockage, which might exacerbate infections in affected areas."

She didn't seem willing to guess further, and Kal dismissed her with a nod. In moments, the touchdown signal went off and the doctor took her place next to the exit hatch, even as the soldiers got up and took their positions, favorite weapons unstowed. The gradually returning comms were flooding all channels, and Kal had managed to gain reasonable confidence that the ground was by and large safe. With a sizable squad remaining, however, Kal saw no reason to compromise security, and his troops moved out into a defensive formation the moment the hatch opened. The doctor grabbed her kit on her way down, and Kal followed with a retractable stretcher in his unarmed hand.

"Reegar! Good to see you," yelled the giant human while still meters away but bounding in Kal's direction. A quick look around revealed that they were, indeed, on something that had been a square but now was only lined with mostly thigh-high remnants of walls sketching out the former layout. The humans had the clearer paths—streets?—covered and his own troops had spread out to provide visual coverage of the entire surrounding field in the descending twilight.

The human almost pulled Kal off his feet, skidding to a halt and grabbing the quarian's arm and starting to drag him back toward the slightly more intact building they had apparently been using as their firing position. Kal knew the man only slightly and couldn't remember much more than that he was a part of Eevy'Shepard vas Normandy's crew. The captain was about to ask the man's name, when a more familiar voice assaulted his ears, supplying the information as well as lifting his spirits slightly.

"Let the bastard go, Vega! He can fucking _walk_, you don't need to fucking carry him. Tali's the one that needs carrying, if you can only fit one quarian in your pea brain at one time."

Kal glanced up at the slight woman standing up behind the low wall in front of them, grateful to be back under his own power. Striding forward, he observed that Jack vas Normandy had obtained more covering for both her head and her body. The woman's near-nakedness had been shocking to the few quarians who had dealings with the Normandy…not so much because of any feeling of obscenity, but because the concept of walking around with nothing protecting your skin was an unfamiliar one, to say the least. Nevertheless, the woman had never shouted at Kal more than anyone else, or shied away from shouting at him, so he figured he was in her good graces, inasmuch there were any. Both she and Vega were bareheaded, further reassuring the captain that the situation was somewhat calmer.

Jack beckoned them over and knelt back down, actually greeting Kal by name. Dr. Amirai darted straight through the little hole in the wall, while the captain took a last look around the scene and only ducked through the wall when he was satisfied that the joint quarian and human force had the situation under control, nodding at Jack when coming down to her level. Tali'Zorah did not to his great relief look very battered, but did seem slightly startled when sensing the new presences around her.

"Hush, Tali, it's Kal'Reegar and…" started Jack, querying the doctor with her eyes and then repeated the answer, "—and Dr. Amirai. They'll take care of you."

Tali mumbled something that might have been a greeting, but it was hard to tell with the bandages further muffling the sound. Vega was already recounting the events, prompted by a punch in the shin. The humans had done well to cover the breach as soon as possible even if their methods were necessarily crude. Dr. Amirai nodded occasionally, even seeming a little startled when the giant showed how far the impact had flung the unlucky admiral.

"So we did have to pull her over here to cover," Vega explained, "but after that we kept her still until she woke up. She was out, like, eight–ten minutes. I didn't let her get up until she showed she could move her limbs and talked pretty OK. She was fine for a few moments, and then she started drowsing off."

"She doesn't seem to have been unconscious after that first wake-up, just really fucking out of it," Jack supplied.

Dr. Amirai nodded for Kal to unfold the stretcher, satisfied with the readings she was getting from Tali's tool and the crude scan she was able to get using hers. "She seems well enough to move with little risk. There is a fairly severe infection, and a moderate concussion. I believe that the soft tissue in her neck may also have some damage that could possibly be deteriorating her condition." Noticing Kal's involuntary twitch, she turned slightly toward him and tried to offer reassurance. "All treatable…we just need to get her to a clean room as soon as possible so that we can start treatment. I don't think she's too badly off, but we don't want to take any risks."

With audible sighs of relief, both humans moved slightly—Jack away from the scene to give room, and Vega to one side to gently ease Tali'Zorah's head down as instructed. The big man and Kal then gingerly lifted the wounded admiral on the ceramic stretcher and held her still while the inflatable compartments filled out to hold her firmly in place, finally picking the stretcher up with little effort. Receiving an all-clear signal from the squad at the shuttle, they carefully lifted the stretcher over the wall and trudged toward the small vessel. Tali'Zorah was light enough to only cause moderate strain for Kal, and the only sound the big human made was a grunt of a greeting to someone on his comm channels—quickly followed by Jack's uncouth one.

Two of the captain's troops hopped inside the shuttle and stowed their weapons in preparation for handling the stretcher inside the craft, and Dr. Amirai used the squad comm to tell them to move the admiral immediately toward the decon space. The two bearers reached the shuttle in just moments, and carefully slid the stretcher onto the floor and in the hands of the two waiting soldiers. Kal turned around to take a final look at the scene and issued the order to board to the remaining squad.

Vega was almost inside the craft when Kal noticed him, and rather abruptly pulled the big man back on the ground by grabbing a protrusion of armor. "You can't come, Lieutenant!"

Vega, visibly agitated, turned to Kal yelling, "The hell I can't! It's my responsibility to—"

The man quieted at the slap delivered to the back of his head by Jack vas Normandy. "They've got a fuckload of wounded quarians and they can't have your filthy cesspool of a corpse up there, spreading fuck knows what diseases!" the smaller woman shouted at Vega, though not unkindly if Kal was any judge. Rounding to face the man, she continued, "I'm sure Kal'Reegar," pointing back toward him, "will ensure that the doctors or he himself will inform us whenever there are any news."

Kal voiced his agreement even as the woman turned around to face him, and pushed her omni close to his. "In fact, use this channel…it's mostly the Normandy crew, so someone who cares will be there at all times," she said, a hint of concern in her voice and eyes.

"I will call in as soon as we've got her at the med bay, and then when there are any changes," promised the captain, after confirming the channel details had transferred correctly. He pulled a quick salute and then climbed on board of the shuttle with the rest of his squad. The humans were still arguing when he watched the hatch close.

"But I wanted to go with her, it was my responsibility," complained Vega.

"Fuck that, you just want to take the shuttle because you're fucking scared now it's getting dark!" retorted Jack, shoving the lieutenant toward their bunker and hooking her arm as an invitation, "Come on, sweet cheeks. I'll walk you home."

* * *

The rachni actually seemed to startle the matriarch but it was difficult to tell, fully encased in hardsuits and helmets as they were. The creature met them in the narrow corridor between the makeshift dock—really just a reasonably intact segment of an erstwhile corridor—and the actual tower base, guarded by the generated environmental barrier they had already passed, and a hatch beyond it. Some of the asari from the first two Search & Rescue teams to arrive were working to extend the barrier outwards up to the first docked shuttle and reinforcing the temporary attachments keeping the shuttle in place. Hannah was certain the asari would have creches, but it certainly didn't hurt to secure the area despite that. The other first responder shuttle had attached itself to the top surface of the floating hull, and was using its thrusters to slowly stabilize the giant piece of debris.

The distinctly insectoid being emerged from the shadows next to the hatch in the bulkhead. Hannah wasn't terribly surprised to see it without discernible protective gear. The few times she had seen rachni at the Crucible, they had been happy to scurry about unprotected, clearing short distances in the vacuum with nothing but little magnet attachments on their feet. She had also gotten the feeling that while the drones, as most of the humanoids had come to call them, weren't precisely just slaves to or extensions of the queens, they lacked the instinct for self-preservation where it wasn't essential for the completion of whatever they were doing.

The drone greeted them by lifting its forward legs and rubbing one foot against the second-lowest segment of the other, and clicking its mandibles to produce that peculiar sound that at the same time was exactly described by the word chitter, yet something completely different. The atmosphere in the corridor was weak enough that Hannah couldn't really hear what it was saying, but that was all the same as no translation software could reliably translate the rachni speech yet. She hazarded a guess that it _was_, in fact, greeting them and possibly asking them to follow. Aethyta seemed unnerved, but strode after the rachni when it keyed the hatch open and gracefully slid over the doorstep one leg at a time. Hannah had time to wonder why such a high step was necessary until reorienting herself and realizing that they were walking across the ceiling.

Another twenty meters later they emerged into a larger chamber. It seemed to have suffered significant damage, with twisted and rent strips and larger hunks of metal and plastic peacefully floating around, even something that appeared to be ceramic or stone. There was a beautiful observation window that was still intact and at least three times the admiral's height. Below them more sundered metal revealed the origin of most of the debris, unmistakably a collapsed ceiling. The rachni started descending the wall onto what seemed to have been the floor of the room when gravity was still being generated. As she followed, Hannah earned herself a skipped heartbeat glancing upon two human bodies ungracefully taped or roped to one of the walls to keep them steady. Neither was her daughter, although the man looked vaguely familiar from somewhere. The woman she had never seen.

"Hah, good riddance to that bastard," exclaimed Aethyta gleefully, just as another asari emerged from a doorway on one side of the room.

At half-run, she came to a halt in front of the trio of human, asari, and rachni, and saluted them in the traditional asari manner of bowing her head almost to her chest while bringing her left hand, fingers extended, up so that the first joint of her thumb would have touched her chin had she not had her helmet on. "Admiral Shepard, Matriarch Aethyta?" she queried and continued after answering nods, already striding back toward the doorway, "Good, come with me. I am Eris Vanna, I command the Search & Rescue. You're just in time."

"The rachni found them here. It was really quite a sight when we arrived," Eris was telling the matriarch, the two having stayed back at a discreet distance as one of the doctors—Terea, Eris's sister—took the admiral to the three creches being prepared for transport by a bunch of asari and the hulking frame of a krogan. "In fact…" she continued, drawing Aethyta's attention back and keying up her omni to show a video clip. The shaky footage, probably from the commando's helmet camera, gradually focused on four figures: an enormous krogan anchored on the floor cross-legged, cradling the unhelmeted and obviously unconscious Shepard tenderly, with another man—just turning toward the noise the asari were making—holding a bandage around her midriff. A fourth shape could be seen slumped across the krogan's shoulder, some kind of a binding evidently holding her in place. "You should have _heard_ the krogan…that's how we found them. Their beacon had actually gone off just as we got here, but it wasn't precise enough to pinpoint their location."

"That is fucking adorable," Aethyta said in a raw, quiet voice, "but you better make sure it stays off the extranet, or the krogan _will_ find you and tenderly crush you into paste." She did, however, flash a smile at the younger asari before sauntering toward the aforementioned krogan.

"…So she's not really at risk, but we had to sedate her just so she wouldn't wake up," Terea was saying as a very relieved Admiral Hannah Shepard peered through the small panel of the creche. "The burns would be excruciatingly painful, beyond any analgesics. The wound in her abdomen is adequately sealed and none of the broken bones or other wounds are life-threateningly serious. I believe that we can safely ship her and the three others directly to the hospital ships rather than having to take her out of the creche at the fleet and hoping there's room and doctors in one of the med bays. By my estimate, a shuttle can intercept the hospital fleet about 2 hours out."

"If you think that's fine, doctor," Hannah nodded, and then continued, slightly puzzled, "_Three_ others?"

"Yes, the krogan," the asari responded, nodding behind her, "is injured fairly badly, but he's refused to go in a creche and he's got a hardsuit and helmet… There was also another human woman with severe injuries to a leg and an arm, and a human man who had lost one leg almost entirely. The two were also suffering from some kind of a paralysis, but neither was really in shape to talk, so they both got sedated and boxed."

"Very well. I will go with them," decided the admiral, turning to see where Aethyta had gone. "Set up the details with the matriarch…she doesn't need to come if she feels she'll be of more use helping with the Search & Rescue but she might be able to convince the krogan to co-operate with you."

Terea nodded and headed toward where her sister and the matriarch were speaking with the krogan. Eris was remarking that it was miraculous and a sign of the blessing of the Goddess that the entire section had survived intact and without serious breaches when everything around it was in bits. Aethyta didn't quite agree, in slightly less polite terms regarding it more as solid engineering to build a control center that was designed to detach from the rest of the structure in case of a catastrophic failure rather than to go down in flames with it.

Hannah, with a hint of a smile at the matriarch's common sense, took a few steps away from the creches to let the asari medics finish their preparations, and let herself slump down into a squat with her helmet between her knees and eyes closed. A few ragged breaths later, she activated her comms and switched to the Alliance control channel.

{Command? This is Admiral Shepard. Tell me the planetary communications are back online, and get me Admiral Anderson, Liara T'Soni, or Maj… Spectre Alenko, and queue calls to Admiral Bajic and the _Orizaba_.}

* * *

Not once, but twice they had to shock Anderson to get the man's heart back to rhythm before Marks returned with the first bit of good news they'd had: a transport with a real doctor. Kaidan's relief hearing Marks shouting from 50 meters away was such that he almost lost the biotic cushion he'd held to stabilize Anderson. He was, in fact, almost at the end of his strength anyway. Only the energy drink Xiao—Kaidan had finally gotten the man's name—had found in the pocket of one of the other wounded had kept him going this long.

Kaidan could hear the transport's hum getting closer somewhere behind the crushed vehicle they were crouched against. A few moments more and Marks was bounding around the corner, grabbing a hold of a protruding axle to tighten his radius, and the hovering ground vehicle slid into Kaidan's view. With a sharp hiss, the hatch opened to expel three men even before the craft had come to a halt. Kaidan could see at least two more inside, and several stretchers and benchfuls of wounded the craft had already gathered.

Two of the arrivals were clearly providing security, both first scanning the perimeter before one stowed her weapon and escorted the third – the doctor, Kaidan presumed – toward him. The other woman stayed near the vulnerable shuttle, with Ranas and Continau quickly moving to new spots to better utilize their temporary triangle.

The doctor stopped by both of the closer casualties first, quickly scanning their wounds with his portable kit and omni, talking nonstop to Xiao as they got closer and finally to Kaidan. "Spectre Alenko? Dr. Albert Weiss, Primary Medical Specialist. This is Admiral Anderson?" he queried, setting back to work of scanning as Kaidan nodded and noted that the admiral had been revived twice.

Xiao drew closer to explain that both of the other two seemed to be reasonably well off according to Dr. Weiss' scans, and could be transported in the shuttle, although one needed to be strapped to the roof with no room inside. A glance toward the shuttle told Kaidan that the other two medics were already on their way with some foldable stretchers.

"Do you know how far out the transport was?" asked the doctor from his crouch, rubbing his face roughly with an ungloved hand.

Kaidan checked the locator on his omni, and to his relief found that the Primarch's shuttle was only minutes out. "How bad is he?"

"Bad. I can't do anything here except add some medi-gel to try to keep him stable. You're looking rough enough that you probably can't keep the stabilization up the entire trip up to the fleets," the doctor estimated. "I think we need to risk getting him on a stretcher. His back is definitely broken, and the neck almost certainly…but it's better we do it here with enough people than for it to happen suddenly later."

Kaidan nodded his assent, and moments later Dr. Weiss, Xiao, and Marks were carefully placing the stretcher underneath Anderson, with Kaidan struggling to slowly inch his bubble up, molding it around Anderson while letting the man pass through it onto the platform underneath. They had just managed to get the man on the stretcher and the inflatable supports conformed to his shape when the Primarch's shuttle landed next to the medical hover.


	9. Chapter 8

_A/N: The Citadel has been under Reaper control for a little under 60 hours when the fleets arrive._

* * *

"You need to rest and replenish. You keep getting shot when your biotics die out."

"Yeah, and you need to stop getting stabbed with a fucking _sword_ to dodge out of fighting."

"That will never get old, will it?"

"No. And what is this swill? I can't drink…this!"

"I am sorry, your men assured me it was the best they could find. Now, stay still!"

"Arh! …Give me tha—"

The door closed behind Bailey with a hydraulic hiss. His boots made alternate clomping and dragging sounds as he painfully moved past the two batarians guarding the door and toward the squat staircase leading to the tunnel connecting this squalid shelter complex to the last of the structures they had set up for defense. The wounds in his side and hip made him cringe on every one of the three steps he had to take, and he idly wondered whether it would _really_ lead to the complete undoing of his tattered moral fabric if he were to send someone in his stead the next time.

The noise of thousands of people trying to move and talk very quietly assaulted his ears from the other hallway leading to the tunnel, and followed his shuffling far into it. They had chosen this place more out of necessity than anything else—although he had to admit, it was very good for the purpose until the enemy would finally break through and the shelter became a dead end with nowhere to run. The rats claimed it had been the headquarters of the 6th Ward gang, something he had no trouble believing. Hidden behind this tunnel, unreachable from the surface, and with a few rather well-appointed rooms adjoining an enormous warehouse, it would have made an excellent temporary storage for whatever it was the 6th Ward was peddling at the moment.

Last he had dared to enter the squalor that used to be the warehouse, he had estimated that the population huddled up within was close to fifty thousand. Little to no food, no sanitation, no water since yesterday…the few doctors and nurses they had were guessing anywhere up to a hundred people dying every hour, with not even a place to remove the bodies to. Racial tensions were running high, and despite their best efforts to keep the antisocial segment of the Citadel's criminal underbelly out of there, fights were breaking out constantly. Bailey had what seemed like days ago instructed the Blue Suns, tasked to maintain order in the shelter, to simply shoot the troublemakers rather than risk a full-scale riot breaking out. Despite himself, he had felt an ephemeral surge of…something like hope for the survival of civil society when the Suns had actually been reluctant to follow the order. The only bit of good news—and it was only good in the most cynical way—was that in the last ten hours they had only seen a handful of new people arrive from the outside.

Coming up to their final checkpoint on the other side of the tunnel, their 'last stand' in the words of some literary fucker who hadn't been among the standing, he stopped to bum some water off a terribly young salarian doing his shift in guard. The commander—surely former commander, after this—tried to eke out a few more minutes of rest and relief from massaging his side back to life by pretending to inspect the pitiful barricade of crates, barrels, and molded plastic. By the looks on the faces of the dozen or so guards grimly surveying the corridors opening up in front of them, they knew just as well as he did that the only scenario where the flimsy structure would be of any use would be if saviors were charging in seconds behind the attackers.

With a cough and a perfunctory mumble about staying strong, Bailey handed back the water bottle and started toward the left and their farthest outpost. His vague ghost of a thought, an instinct to return to the post and prepare for another fruitless patrol to gauge enemy movements and to try locate survivors all but evaporated as a low, short rumble shook the floor under his feet, and momentarily lifted him off the floor before normal gravity returned. They were used to explosions rocking the structures around them, but this time Bailey had already turned around and started running toward the right-hand corridor and shouting for the guards to stay at their posts even before his comm link crackled.

{Commander, Trestia, now!}

{On my way, Kolyat!} shouted Bailey in response, trusting the young drell to know well enough to get off the comms immediately. Icy fingers of pain started scraping up and down his side as he ran like he hadn't run in 20 years.

Pushing his way through the pain and the burning in his lungs, Bailey was aiming straight for the tightly guarded elevator at the outpost at the end of the hallway. This stronghold was in the storage and maintenance levels of the Trestia Tower, a full-service apartment building for the affluent of Tayseri Ward. Its security measures were impressive enough that the relative prominence of the structure had been deemed an acceptable risk in trade for the vantage it offered.

Losing his footing rounding a corner sent Bailey crashing into the opposing wall and the shock of the impact hitting his side momentarily stole his control over that side of his body, tumbling him sprawling on the floor. Coughing and spitting as he pushed himself up, he wryly noted to himself that at least he had gotten the attention of the guards ahead without having to try to yell through his tortured gasping at full run.

"Ele…vator!" he weakly shouted even as he tried to accelerate back into a run. The guards, to their credit, seemed to both recognize and understand him, two starting toward the larger space beyond to call the elevator and one hung back to wait for Bailey. The turian staying behind looked even older than Bailey felt but he held his post until the human went past and then sprinted to catch up after verifying nothing was following.

"What is it, Commander? Do we need to contact someone?"

For a moment, Bailey considered having the turian call the shelter complex, but then thought better of it. The last thing they needed, if something was indeed happening, was giving away their position and losing everything _now_. Even Kolyat's call had been risky. Bailey simply shook his head and ran the last few hundred meters to the elevator, nearly diving as he slumped on the floor and rolled onto his back to spend the next minute taking heaving, ragged gulps of air.

He had almost managed to calm his breathing down to merely gasping when the elevator stopped at the unremarkable floor they had chosen for their surveillance, far below the tower's grandiose outdoor atrium which would have offered a much better view, but also significantly higher chances of exposure.

Bailey exited the elevator at half-stagger, and turned toward the silhouette he saw painted against one window with its hands and face pressed to the glass like a child in a zoo. As his gaze focused past Kolyat's shape, the commander's legs took control of their own movement and carried him to the windows. This side of Trestia was facing toward the Presidium, and Bailey stared right past the ring, not really even registering the fact that the arms were opening because of the backdrop it was opening against—

"Earth. It's Earth," he breathed, fogging up the glass his nose was pressed against.

* * *

"You're bleeding, Commander."

Bailey turned toward the drell, confused. They had both been captivated by the silent carnage outside, the dance of lasers and the multicolored flashes of torpedoes and explosions all around them. With the Citadel having opened fully, like a flower into a full bloom instead of the slightly parted petals of a budding plant, the Wards were bombarded by fire from both sides missing its mark, and not a few ships had crashed into the surface buildings, drawing deep gashes into their city, spilling gases and debris out of the containment field like blood from a wound.

Zakera had already been an empty, burnt husk; a reminder of Bailey's failure and dereliction of duty, and the sight of which was reason he despised coming up to the Tower. As an enormous blazing Reaper craft skidded across the farther end of it, rending from the city a swath half a kilometer wide before tumbling off somewhere beyond, his only consolation was Kolyat's assurance that they had managed to evacuate _most_ of the remaining population along with the unconscious commander before incinerating the Ward in the hopes of slowing down the husks.

The mostly human-populated Ward had been a lost cause to begin with. The Reapers had immediately concentrated most of their forces there, wanting to capture as many humans alive as possible. The other Wards, so far as Bailey had been able to piece together from the tales of survivors, had been hit with smaller forces whose only intent had been to destroy everything in their way. All station-wide communications had been cut almost instantly, and in Zakera C-Sec had relied on the help of the few mercenary groups and even some of the bigger criminal gangs to try to locate secure places to funnel people to, a task made slightly easier by the secret ways the duct rats knew to be accessible when the Wards were closed. The Citadel being as vast as it was, it would likely have taken the Reapers weeks to destroy the entire population, so it had seemed sensible to get humans out and dispersed into the other Wards. Bailey had been injured some hours earlier but by Kolyat's retelling the decision to destroy Zakera, its connections to the other Wards, and as many Reaper thralls as they could along with it had been made when the enemy forces had been close to discovering the conduits between the Wards. How much destruction and how many human and alien victims had actually been caused was unclear but, as far as anyone could tell, the Ward was completely cut off from the rest of the Citadel.

"Commander?"

Kolyat's voice returned Bailey to the present, the drell's sounds finally parsing into words in his brain. Bailey glanced down at his side to find it entirely coated in dark, thick blood, the copper stench assaulting him when he started accepting input from his senses again.

"Sit down and get those clothes off, I have some medi-gel somewhere," Kolyat ordered calmly, prompting Bailey to do as he was told with the help of the two younger guardsmen while the drell rummaged around the pouches in his armor until supplied two pouches by the elderly turian.

"How is he?" Kolyat inquired almost casually as he carefully applied the gel on the crudely stitched wounds, many of which had been undone by the commander's exertion with seeping slick blood smearing his skin almost to his navel and dirty white bone peeking through gaping, ragged skin across more than one rib.

"Fine," grunted the commander through gritted teeth, "he was making himself useful by patching up the queen bitch. Again."

Whatever Kolyat's reply might have been was forgotten when the wave of purple struck them.

All five blinked at each other for a moment when it passed, unsure of what had happened, fervently hoping that they were not about to be disintegrated or worse. With a few seconds gone by, the older turian decided to take the risk of opening his mouth. "Commander, I think now it's time to call them."

Bailey tapped on his omni with a nod at the veteran, leaning forward with Kolyat returned to finishing wrapping him up with some microgauze.

By the excited twitching of the turian's mandibles and the grins spreading on three other faces, Bailey guessed that they were hearing the same thing in their aurals as he was. The celebration was about as raucous as a sleep-deprived and wounded rag-tag bunch of warriors could muster—until enormous explosions destroyed the Presidium and briefly showered the Wards with debris before they themselves tore free from the ring, cascading explosions, implosions, and decompression now actually audible throughout the vastness of the Tayseri Ward.

* * *

{Excuses. Just haul your turkey ass up here soon as you can,} said Jack by way of good-bye and flicked the channel back to the side, opting to look over the data from the fleets for any mention of the kids instead. Trudging over another pile of crumbled tiles and stone, careful to not slip on the fine ash covering everything, she slurped the rest of her juice pack and tossed the crumpled foil at the back of Vega's head.

"Slower, asshole, your legs are too long," she kindly instructed the marine who, admittedly, was very handy for making way through a crowd.

The two had decided to head for the safe zone almost as soon as the quarian shuttle had taken off, with even Ulyanov—after a little coaxing and a lot of shouting—walking by himself, albeit under Molina's watchful eyes. Despite the decreased threat they'd kept Rivers marching last with Jack and her biotics' reserves pretty much wiped out, too, but only once had they been beset by a group of husks, the gray shapes barely visible in the rapidly fading light but offering little resistance when lit up by the two marines bookending their tired parade.

Despite the enormous casualty estimates the ground command's feed displayed, they had entered the safe zone to find it packed tight with soldiers from a myriad of forces, not only Hammer, trying to organize and find their way back into their units. The troops were all injured to some degree nearly to the last man, woman, or asari, although these were mostly the lucky ones who felt well enough to stand and walk. The more seriously wounded and those tending to them had been ordered to be transported to sector 34, centered on what used to be a vast park and zoo and provided slightly better facilities for shuttles to start lifting the wounded away from the battlefield to wherever the command could find space. The biotics took their leave and went in search of their own units.

The command post area was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the ruined landscape, the dark of night obscuring whatever distinctive features the husks of buildings may still have had. Lights flooded the few blocks a little brighter, and some enterprising souls had found the time to set up holo projectors with instructions to the crannies the various disparate groups had claimed for themselves, and the joint command center a little further east, nearby the thickest concentration of temporary antennae.

Flicking back to their channel, Jack checked Liara's location parameters. Pushing past Vega, it took her a few minutes to find the right pile of rubble to climb up to the second-floor window that led her to a room occupied by at least ten HI screens and a familiar figure painted an unfamiliar green by the yellowish glow of the monitors.

"God_damn_, lady, you don't dick around," said Jack with an appreciative whistle. "How the hell did you get all this shit up here already?"

"Jack," Liara almost whispered, turning her head toward the woman clambering in through the window. "It seems that having the temporary rank of a general is quite…handy. I have managed to secure adequate resources to properly monitor events as soon as I get connected to all the necessary feeds."

"You don't say," deadpanned Jack, turning her gaze toward Vega, who had ungracefully gotten through the window after tasking Rivers and Molina to take Ulyanov to the evac sector and to report in after having eaten.

"You can go play with your friends now," offered Jack, giving Vega a dismissive wave and a long look before turning to walk over to Liara. "Or stay here with us, I don't give a fuck."

The asari looked positively haggard when Jack got close, her normally bright sky blue skin waxy and pallid, and tinted a bruised grey. Her eyes were sunken, and an impressive gash went up from her cheek all the way to the end of one of her fringes. Another one seemed to be missing a few centimeters, the ugly wound hastily patched with some medi-gel.

"Oh my, you look terrible, Jack! Are you all right?" Liara asked looking up at Jack with a genuine expression of concern, causing the human woman to burst out into a ragged laughter.

Liara was still looking at her with slight puzzlement when Vega cleared his throat and interjected, "Dr. T'Soni, with respect, you yourself look like…you could use some food," he finished lamely.

"Yeah, Blue, you look like hell," supplied Jack, wiping a smudgy tear off her dust-caked eyelashes. She had to admit that she probably had seen better days herself, scraped everywhere, scorched in several places, and maybe nursing a broken rib and a broken arm. "Listen, we all need some grub…let's go see what these pompous fucks have hidden away from the people who actually did the fighting."

"I—I cannot go now," the asari mumbled. "I finally found a connection to to the turian fleets, and I have unsteady connections between all the other main units except for the rachni because I still cannot understand their speech, nor find a working translation upgrade, and Shiala isn't here as far as I could tell from my scans, but I was able to at least divert some assistance over to Garrus so that he could get himself detached and come here to see if we can find some ships. We must try to get all these wounded transported and all their names and the names of the…the dead, and when I keep monitoring the channels myself, I can optimize the filtering algorithms with very few VI resources, like the message from your Rodriguez that I would not have had the VI capacity for, and that's the kind of information that I want to find so that I can get everyone updated while trying to get the military comms routing and signaling to free up some bandwidth—"

"Hey, hey…" Jack grunted, awkwardly placing a hand on Liara's shoulder. "Come now. Did you say Rodriguez was still kicking? Thank fuck for small miracles. I thought that girl would get herself killed for sure. What was the message about?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was not thinking… She was trying to get a hold of—" Liara started, only to be interrupted by a holoprojection blinking into existence on one of the HIs in front of them.

Jack could only stare for a moment, before her mouth started working. "Shepard?"

"No…or yes…no," Liara muttered quietly, with a hint of alarm in her voice. "Admiral Shepard?"

When the woman spoke, Jack started noticing the differences too. Even beyond the slightly hazy quality of the projection, the woman's voice was a little higher, her face a little rounder, her lips fuller and skin a little darker. Real eyes, not cybernetic.

"Yes, Liara. I'm glad I found you!" exclaimed Hannah. "She's fine."

"S—she is alive?" gasped the asari, shrinking in her chair as if she had been deflated of all energy in an instant.

"Huh…goddamn," Jack muttered, squeezing Liara's shoulder. Behind, Vega barked a triumphant laughter.

Lifting her chin, a smile fighting to break free, Liara started scrambling for her various HIs and talking to herself almost as much as to Hannah, "Wh— How is she? How can I— Where are you? How can I get there? I can— There's a shuttle that I am sure I can—"

"Liara! Liara," the admiral said in soothingly, "listen. She's sedated right now, and will be for a few days. She needs some patching up but she's not going to go and die on us. She's _fine_. Okay?

"It's going to be hard getting off the planet right now, and I don't want you to do anything stupid trying. I'm going with her, and we're flying straight over to meet the hospital ships. I'm having our shuttle's ID and the flight plan sent to you. I will call you again when we get there, and we can figure out how to get you up too. Okay?"

"I—", started Liara, only to be interrupted by Jack poking her head in front of the camera. "Got it. We'll keep Blue grounded and let the others know Shepard's OK."

"Good. I must go. I will call again in three hours. Aethyta may call earlier," said the miniature Hannah Shepard before disconnecting.


	10. Chapter 9

Wrex was wondering why he only had two eyes. With all the other redundancies built into his body, why only two? In truth, he wasn't quite sure if he was permanently reduced to one or if the problem was temporary, but it didn't much matter in his current predicament. Only being able to see out of his left eye was a decided disadvantage, the only visible thing there being the dead Reaper on top of him.

The blood rage was a mixed blessing. It was the only reason Urdnot Wrex was still standing when the Reaper fell, standing on a mountain of corpses when none of his clan remained, standing crudely bent lengths of rebar wielded in both hands with all other weapons discarded as half-molten lugs of overheated alloy. The waning grasp of the blood rage was why Urdnot Wrex was daring the desecrated krogan husks below him to charge when the purplish green filled what remained of his vision. The blood rage carried his voice to all corners of this land when he bellowed his victory as the abominations fell lifeless where they stood.

The blood rage would also have left him dead underneath the enormous Reaper as it collapsed, the mass crushing everything under its two-kilometer bulk. The smallest inkling of rational thought Wrex had once described it to Shepard like the feeling of instinct when you're thinking rationally, except the opposite burrowed through the slowly loosening vise around his consciousness and sent his head turning to scan for anywhere to run. Just behind him, he spotted a half-collapsed entryway to some underground passage.

The blood rage carried him to salvation, the strength of ten krogan launching him toward the cavern in a final, desperate dive. The crushing weight descended on his back even as he landed on the metal stairs with their sharp, pointy edges, the pressure cracking his armor at all seams, the plates digging into his flesh before the stairway gave in just a few centimeters and left Wrex merely crushed and pinned.

It was quite hard to knock out a krogan, a fact that Wrex could also have done without just now. He was able to ignore quite a bit of pain, to block out some of the damage signals various parts of his body were sending, but this was overwhelming even his disciplined and conditioned mind. Nearly all of his plating was fractured the best he could tell, and much of the muscle underneath was badly contused or worse. Probably few or no bones broken, and his breathing was there. The most troubling part was the steady trickle across his face and arms, pinkish viscous fluid flicking at the edges of his vision and pooling down below. The orange-yellow blood mixing into it from a thousand cuts was not so bad, but the pink meant that his most-armored part, his _tach_, was badly ruptured.

The _tach_, the true measure of a krogan, was used not only to store fluids and nutrients but also to actually filter those from both blood and the neuroconductive fluid. An important side-effect of this process was that the vital fluids were also cleansed for microbes, toxins, and even radiation damage. With the burst and leaking storage sacs, the network of fine veins and supporting glands could still continue to work, slowly draining his system of its fluids as they would be siphoned into the broken bladders only to ooze right out.

This considerably narrowed his options.

Trying to wriggle out from under the weight and further into the cavern opening might work but for the splintered armor that would tear deep into his flesh even if the weight on top of him did not outright collapse the rest of the suit and then him. Wrex _thought_ that the Reaper was probably stable and wouldn't press down further even the cavern in front of him was still mostly intact from what he could tell, the limit of his vision being just at the level of the roof. The enormous weight above must have been distributed somehow evenly across the larger area, or just unevenly and luckily light where he was. Trying to think of a mention of a similar situation in the great war epics for options, Wrex filed away the idea of flaying himself while hopefully not getting squashed like a pyjak for perusal at the point where no other option remained. He could not recall any songs or stories, either, which meant being pinned underneath an enormous space ship was a unique situation in the history of his people or that nobody had lived to tell the tale and had never been found for others to honor the warrior's struggle in his stead.

Asking for help wasn't something that came naturally to most krogan. Such needs were usually elided by the oaths and codes that bound one's clan and _krantt_, though Urdnot Wrex had made a concerted effort to try to adopt such demeanor when the situation allowed for it partly for himself, and partly to make an example he had tried to reintroduce it to his clan and beyond.

As he started flaying only his right arm to try tear it through its cracked armoring and liberate it to reach his left-hand omni, Urdnot Wrex silenced his natural rebellious urges with a barking chuckle and the thought that at least this request for help wasn't an _easy_ one.

* * *

"Matriarch Aria! What a wonderful surprise," an amplified voice with a metallic tinge rang out from the direction of the Tayseri Commercial Port's entrance as the procession carrying the once and future ruler of Omega approached it.

The bearers had time for half-formed panic before the biotic storm exploding in their midst hurled them into the shipping crates forming the wide corridor through which they had been approaching the squat but wide glass facade of the ports. Batarian, turian and asari alike went flying in an instant, impacting the corrugated surfaces with vile, nauseating crunches as bones snapped in whichever parts were unlucky enough to have been flung forward. Even the retinue following meters behind and the guardsmen similarly ahead were thrown off their feet as the stretcher and its occupant rose vertical inside a tempestuous bubble of pure biotic energy.

There was one extremely important corollary to the One Rule of Omega and recently of the Citadel one so crucial that it was not spoken out loud: never, _ever_, call Aria T'Loak by her honorific.

The immensely powerful asari was quite a sight even slightly indisposed. The pure, unadulterated rage twisting her finely sculpted form was still regal, a true queen of fury with her shoulders tight and drawn back, arms low but turned to bring her palms forward, palms that rippled with barely contained force, fingers like talons. Her face a horrifyingly beautiful mask of pure savage predation so unfamiliar in asari, her eyes aflame like suns, her skin paled to a bluer shade, her perfect lips drawn in a perfectly chiseled sneer revealing teeth wreathed in the purple that surrounded her entire form, pulsing like the heartbeat of lightning come alive. The very air itself ready to descend upon the speaker now casually strolling forward and removing her helmet.

"You," the pirate queen breathed, the power around her quelling as if expelled by her softening exhalations.

"Me," Aethyta replied with a wicked grin. "Lay down, Ali. You're hurt," she continued more seriously, and gestured at the first two ranks of her squad to assist Aria, the other woman's retinue still timidly picking itself up from the ground and walls after the unexpected but not unusual volatility of their mistress.

Four larger squads of asari commandos tasked to Search & Rescue emerged from the port building behind Aethyta's group of twenty, and split into different directions leading out of the port area and into the Ward proper. The port itself had been mostly spared after the ships in it were destroyed, making it a reasonable docking point for the rescue effort. Tayseri had come away with relatively little damage in comparison to its siblings, with only the first 5 6 kilometers nearest to the Presidium having been destroyed in the explosions that tore it asunder from the ring. The deep rips radiating thence had not completely torn the understructure apart, unlike Bachjret and Shalta which had both broken into several strips. The Wards were constructed some protection against widthwise damage, but very little for lengthwise, exacerbating the problems with power and decompression. It was quite possible that no-one remained alive on those two Wards.

Aethyta watched the others go, and exchanged a few words with the bubbly and enthusiastic but apparently quite competent Eris Vanna before the younger woman took off to lead her sister and the rest of her squad as they headed for the largest concentration of life signs in this sector bearing some medical supplies and heavy armaments. Even the most pessimistic projections still estimated close to a million survivors on the Citadel, a number entirely too high to immediately evacuate save for the more seriously wounded. The plan was, instead, to try to secure the most-intact Wards of Tayseri and Kithoi and to re-establish or shore their life support, recycling, and power systems, locate all water and food supplies, and have the residents weather it out until a proper plan could be put in place. Other squads were searching through Zakera, Bachjret, and Shalta to transport any survivors from those Wards to the two salvaged ones.

Aethyta decided to indulge herself and carve out a few minutes to help carry Aria to the evac shuttle personally. "Should have guessed you'd still be kicking asses over here," she said approvingly, grunting as she hefted one of the corners at the head end of the stretcher.

"I _was_ a little concerned, I must admit," she murmured to her burden as much sotto voce as she was capable of. "And apparently with some cause."

"What, this?" Aria asked innocently, flicking her eyes toward the bandaging around her right shoulder. "It's nothing."

"No, _that_," replied Aethyta, her elbow jerking toward the purple-smeared coverings almost at the center of the bowl of the ailing queen's hips. "What were you thinking waving your dick around like that over a jest, in your condition?"

"You " Aria started, eyes flaring momentarily before she forced herself to continue calmly. "Nevermind, you cow. I'm surprised to see _you_ around, and helping others no less."

"There have been some developments," Aethyta answered after a few steps in silence. She caught Aria's eyes briefly, a cryptic look in her own. "I was very sorry to hear about Liselle, Ali."

Aria reached back to touch Aethyta's arm with the tips of her fingers. "Thank you," she whispered, pausing for a full minute with her brows knit and jaw clenched before turning her eyes back up at the woman above her.

"Linn she hasn't spoken to me since " she started, interrupted by a small gasp of pain before she grit her teeth. "Have you "

Aethyta shook her head, eyes hardening for a moment. "The last I heard of Linesse was a few weeks back. She was deployed somewhere in the Shrike. Nothing since, neither good nor bad."

"Well, that's That's something."

"It's something," Aethyta agreed as they stepped through the shuttle's doorway. She saw to Aria being secured, and then departed to continue the rescue efforts with a last stern warning for Aria to not to go all queen bitch at least until she was in a ship big enough that she couldn't crack the fucking hull with her biotics.

* * *

{ Fine? What do you mean _she's fine_?}

{She's fine. That's what Mama Shep said, Garrus,} Jack repeated, finding herself able to relate to the turian's trouble comprehending the statement.

{She is fine,} Garrus mused, {She destroyed the Reapers, and from what I understand, blew up the entire Citadel in the process. While still on it.

{And she's fine. She's not d We didn't lose her, and she's not hanging to life by a thread with her head or legs blown off? She's fine?

{Don't get me wrong, Liara,} he amended after a pause, {I'm certainly glad this is This is huh.}

{I understand, Garrus,} Liara whispered, still staring at the spot where the admiral's image had been projected, {It's better than I could have hoped }

{So where the fuck are you, anyway? Didn't I tell you to haul your ass up here?} inquired Jack.

There was a long pause, and then the odd, quiet gurgly sound when Garrus' line lit up again. {I there's still people out there,} he said a few seconds later, his voice even raspier than usual, {and we're not going to leave anyone behind. _Nobody_ gets left behind or alone out there, I'll make sure of that.}

Then, abruptly, the turian just detached from the channel, leaving Jack with a raised eyebrow and a question dying in her mouth.

She brought her hand up to her face to rub at her tired eyes but was left staring at it instead, caked as it was in dried blood and ichor of at least three different colors, all the way up to her elbow and all of it coated in a layer of grey-brown grime. Bringing her other arm up for comparison, she found it identical down to the razor-sharp line separating her clean palms and fingertips from the filthy backs, stripped of the foreign matter by her biotic fields.

She ineffectually scrubbed at her arms for a moment until dismissing the attempt as fruitless and, leaning against the wall next to the window, flicked her visor over to view the results of her VI search for the kids despite knowing full well that she'd have gotten an alert if it had found anything beyond Liara's discovery of Rodriguez's message.

Sighing, she turned back to the room and found Liara having straightened up in her chair but still staring past the screens in front of her, all of the frantic animation from earlier simply gone. To Jack's surprise, Vega had squatted down against the bottom half of what might have been a pillar at some point, his helmet rocking quietly on its side next to him. The man was resting his forearms on his knees, his eyes staring at small silvery plates tied into a length of leather or string coiled around his wrist underneath a pulled-back gauntlet.

_Well, godda ess._

It wasn't that Jack hadn't seen people in obvious distress before, it was just that she normally didn't give a fuck. Finding herself actually wanting to help and having little idea how to go about it was still treacherous territory. A few dozen alternative avenues were thought up and discarded by the time she noticed that she'd fallen into to striding the few meters of floor space back and forth and muttering to herself. Both Vega and Liara were looking at her, momentarily lifted from their own dazes. Embarrassed by her relapse and angered by her embarrassment, she stormed to the window and gripped the splintery remains of the frame, willing her rage to make the jump from her fingers into the building as if it were a lightning rod. The ache in the joints of her fingers and the small needles of wood sliding into her skin gave her a moment's distraction, allowing the anger boiling inside her to dissipate without her mind to hold onto it.

A creak and rustling brought her back from her two places and into the real one with the room and many annoying little bits of wood actual _wood_ in her palms. She was trying to bite in to pull them out with her teeth as she turned back toward the room, her cheeks and nose still aflush.

"Listen uh. Dr. T'Soni, you still have not eaten," Vega stumbled about both in his words and the room, "and you really must. You won't even stays awake until the Admiral calls back if we don't get something in you."

"The dumbass _is_ right, Blue," Jack ventured, turning toward Vega, "and for fuck's sake stop calling her Dr. T'Soni! Christ."

That actually elicited a little laughter from the asari scientist. Even Jack, normally not one for anything even in the neighborhood of adorable, found the sound delightful and was happy to see Liara turn to redirect her feeds into her omni and get up off her chair.

Liara pointed her finger toward the marine and nodded her head sideways toward the back of the room. "Come then, _Lieutenant Vega_. There is an actual doorway into this room as well. I would not want you to attempt crossing that windowsill again."


	11. Chapter 10

Liara found herself so hungry that she even forwent utensils, ravenously chewing on greasy strips of a pale meat she tore off with her left hand as the other covered her mouth for _some_ semblance of manners. Between trying to be as delicate about it as one could be eating in such a barbarous manner and glancing up at the party gathered at the small foldable table around her trying to keep track of the conversations going on between the seven or eight other people, she did find her spirits lifting and even her weariness receding. Despite mostly just listening and concentrating on trying to moderate her bites and gulps of a tart, cloudy, pale golden brown juice of _apples_, she was thoroughly enjoying herself, the little bit of normalcy a distraction from the chaos around their circle. It reminded her of the _Normandy_ inbetween all the battles they had gotten themselves into, not quite sure if it was something all soldiers did to take their minds off their circumstances, or if these circumstances were simply extraordinary. Having set her VIs to divert any relevant information to her omni, Liara felt a little better about abandoning her monitoring station; she knew she had needed the break, and the food. Even Jack seemed to have relaxed a little despite clearly checking her feeds every few minutes.

As she was closing on the bone of her second piece, Liara started drifting into the conversation more, even speaking up a few times—if mostly to ask for clarifications on idioms and references her human tablemates used. She was pleased and thankful to find that even the men and women she did not know—two of them she thought were introduced as James' subordinates and the others had just been sitting at the table as they arrived and were apparently known to the female corporal, Rivers—seemed to try to make an effort to include her, and to her delight even somehow intuited that she enjoyed both learning the idioms and what they meant rather than just wanting them to use simpler language. Despite having been around humans a while already, Liara still found it fascinating to study the dynamic of a group of both sexes and the members of which were not all well known to eachother, creating a contrast to the exposure she had had on the _Normandy_ and on the Citadel.

Much was also made of the food they had all enjoyed, apparently the availability of _chicken_ being something of a miracle. Liara did not quite catch most of what seemed to be an amusing story one of the women was telling about the procurement thereof, wondering as she was about the connection she was certain she remembered to exist between these chickens and dinosaurs. Surely it could not _be_ one, she thought, dangling the small bones up in front of her, but maybe it was an evolutionary fork? She would have to remember to look it up.

"Enjoying the delectable chicken, doct…ah, Liara?" inquired James from the opposite side of the table, sucking loudly on each of his fingers in turn and causing the asari to look around for something to clean her own digits with. She would have to ask Shepard—_Goddess—_how she had made the lieutenant so terrified of Liara. Or herself, she mentally amended.

"Yes, it is quite wonderful," she agreed, rubbing at her fingertips with some tissue the man on her left side had given her. "It tastes a bit like _damis_…they are little furry things that live in trees in the warmer zones of Thessia. And the turians have a sea creature quite similar in flavor, too. Bakara also said that the pyjak closely resemble _damis,_ too, although I would never try myself, and—"

She paused, a little taken aback by the raucous explosion of laughter until Rivers, wiping tears from her eyes, let her in on the joke. Even Liara, relieved that it had not just been something foolish she said, was still giggling when the man sitting next to James nudged the big marine.

"So, LT, what's this I hear about a tattoo?" he inquired, his voice neutral but even Liara could interpret the movement of his eyebrows and the twitching in the corner of his mouth as mischievous, and was not disappointed when James' head turned toward Corporal Rivers like a whip.

"Goddamnit, Rivers, I—" he started bellowing at the red-headed woman before seeming to abruptly run out of steam with his lips still parted.

Even Jack, sitting close on Liara's right, seemed to perk up as Rivers, with an expression matching the man who had asked about the tattoo, leaned back to one side and waggled a finger at James. "You said you would, LT, and you said it in combat. You know the rules!"

"Come on," the lieutenant pleaded to the mirth of the entire table. "Besides, we weren't fighting anymore!"

"Bullshit, LT," Rivers countered, her hands growing animated as she emphasized her point, "you know and I know that it still counts—and besides, the fucking zombies got up again _after_ that so it's not even a valid excuse!"

"OK, _maybe_ I said I should get one, but we're in a fucking warzone, it's gonna have to—" James started before being struck down again.

"I've got a kit sitting over at the FOB, LT," interjected one of the women, "and I've got nothing but time and the desire to do anything to get my mind off this desolate fucking situation we find ourselves in. We can go right now!" she exclaimed, making as if getting up right then.

"Whoa, whoa," James tried to stall, desperately scanning around the table for any support. His eyes lit up as he looked over at Liara, and almost triumphantly he turned toward Rivers and, pointing at Liara, tried to make his case. "Have you thought this through, Rivers, maybe doc— Maybe Liara wouldn't be very happy with me if I did that, did you think about _that_?"

Liara knit her brows trying to make sense of the lieutenant's argument as everyone in the table turned toward her. She was rescued by Jack, who let her chair fall forward from where she had been rocking on its back legs, landing her elbows on the table with her right index finger pointed accusatorially at James.

"Now _I'm_ interested," Jack enunciated carefully in a low voice. "What exactly did you fuck up this time, dumbass?"

Rivers jumped in before James could try to defend himself. "The LT promised that he would have a tattoo of Commander Shepard commissioned on," she paused for effect, "his _left tit_, I believe was the exact wording."

Liara felt a bit of heat on her cheeks and neck and Jack let out an evil cackle with the lieutenant trying to think of something to add to his case as the rest of the table whooped and jeered, the man next to Liara even remarking that he hadn't realized the asari was '_her_' in an awed voice. Quickly recovering and mustering all the poise and seriousness she had cultivated in her time as an information broker, Liara delicately folded her hands on the table and cleared her throat. Satisfied that she had caught everyone's attention, she adopted her most strict and serious tone.

"Now, James, I must admit I _would_ be a little displeased and even jealous if you did that," she started, lighting up James' face even as Rivers and Jack's faces seemed to fall, "_but_ seeing as you have made a solemn oath on the fields of battle, a very sacred thing, I do not see any alternatives but to demand that you do it despite my personal feelings."

The entire table fell silent staring at her. James' mouth slowly falling open was what finally broke Liara's somber mask, the corner of her mouth quivering upwards into a smile. Hearing the marine's relieved groan as he settled his forehead on the table was quite satisfying, as was having intentionally gotten her new friends to laugh. The laughter was still dying off and Jack had gotten to complimenting her in a vaguely obscene manner when James finally lifted his head and looked up at Liara and Rivers in turn.

"Damnit, _Dr. T'Soni_," he half-muttered, "you're an evil, evil woman—and so are you, Corporal.

"But, y'know, you're also right…I did make a promise, and I can't think of a better reason for ink than this right here. We got nothing to do til the morning. Let's go."

"Fuck yes, that's what I want to hear!" exclaimed Jack, pushing her plate toward the bin in the center of the table. "You know what, _cabron_? I'll come with you, and if this chick," she said, pointing at the tattoo artist, "is any good, I'll get one too."

The whole table made to leave, tossing away their used plates and chattering, excited at the prospect of further distraction. Before they actually got going, Jack leaned down next to Liara, looking the asari in the eye from a handspan away.

"You're something else, Blue," she said approvingly after a moment, and continued quietly, "You gonna be OK if I go with the jarhead for a bit? We'll be on the channel."

"Yes…yes, I think so," Liara replied softly, "I will go back up and see if I can find new information, or maybe locate your Rodriguez and the others. Or the _Normandy_. And maybe some cots to sleep in; the days are short on this planet."

"That sounds like a good idea," Jack nodded, and straightened back up.

Liara had just turned her head back toward the table to put away her dinosaur bones when she felt a little rush of air, an arm wrapping around her shoulders, and a warm cheek pressing against hers. The stubbly hair on the side of the woman's head was prickly against the asari's skin as Jack gave her a squeeze and then took off after the marines.

* * *

{Thank you for joining once again. We have some new participants, I will briefly introduce everyone before moving on.

{I am Matriarch Lidanya, commander of the asari contingent. From the humans, we have admirals Lakopoulos and Bajic. Turians are represented by Admiral Rastias, and we now also have the pleasure of the company of Primarch Victus. We are glad that the Primarch was not seriously injured in the battle on the ground,} the asari intoned politely.

{Thank you, Lidanya. I will report on the ground situation when we get to it,} a turian voice interjected.

{Thank you, Primarch.

{Admirals Shala'Raan and Han'Gerrel of the quarians are with us again, as well as our honored guests the rachni. Additionally, Admiral Tann from the batarian fleet and M. Vosque from the mercenary and mercantile fleets join us now. The volus, elcor, drell and hanar are represented by Admiral Bat of the volus.

{Unfortunately the geth are not present; Admiral Bajic will have some information on the matter a little later.}

Alina Bajic slouched back on her armchair, letting her head rest on top of its back, unshod feet propped up on the table she had dragged closer for the express purpose. She was technically off-duty, and her yeoman had brought her customary tumbler of whisky but had also left a gel pouch of stims next to it with the customary discreet precognition the admiral so much valued. Sucking on the artificial berry flavored goop, she leaned back forward and rubbed at the bridge of her nose before concentrating on the Matriarch in front of her, the asari's image enlarging to triple the size of the others with video enabled as she started talking again. Alina noticed that even the normally withdrawn Lakopoulos was among the faces shown, still in full combat regalia and his hat on in what looked like the _Fuji_'s conference room.

{Before we begin,} Lidanya started, {I want to ensure that we are all in order here. With fleet combat now over, I am now longer technically in command. However, unless anyone objects, I would like to continue to moderate these meetings until other arrangements are made.}

Satisfied that no-one objected after a few moments, the matriarch nodded, and picked up again. {Very well, thank you. First, I shall note that based on what the scientists have observed, the Crucible deployed successfully. From their measurements, all of the Reapers, both capital ships and the destroyers, have been completely…erased, I believe would be a good term. Unlike some of the deactivated Reaper technology we have come across, there appears to be nothing left of what Dr. Lok assures me we can think of as their…software. With this confirmed, Admiral Rastias has instructed the turians to alternate between destroying the weapons or power plants of the carcasses so that they are absolutely neutralized while leaving the option of salvaging some of their technology.

{The husks, as the Reaper-affected organic bodies are called, were also affected in that all their Reaper parts were similarly erased. Some of the husks are still somehow reanimated after all that, and they still seem to be aggressive, but they are very weak and pose little risk. Some of the scientists were hoping that the husks could actually be cured somehow, but it seems exceedingly unlikely. The creatures are, unfortunately, no longer the persons they were.}

While Lidanya drew breath amidst pleased mutters from all participants, Alina added a todo item on her pad, anticipating that Lakopoulos would want her talking to Lok again.

{I am also glad to report that with the assistance of the rachni, our Search & Rescue teams were able to locate Commander Shepard and three other persons in an intact section of the Citadel Presidium Tower's base. All four are en route to intercept the hospital fleet, and are expected to make a full recovery.}

Alina couldn't but let out a little private cheer even though she and Lakopoulos had been informed by Admiral Shepard a little earlier. She was also amused to find the normally reserved Primarch breaking in with a solemn 'hurrah'.

Smiling briefly herself, Lidanya continued her report. {The hospital fleet is expected to reach the Earth sphere in a little under three hours. All 51 ships are intact, and their patient capacity is still approximately the original 220,000. With this, I would like to hear status reports on the remaining intact or salvageable ships for each contingent, and the estimate of casualties from fleet operations.}

With a heavy sigh, Lidanya herself went first. {The asari are left with 4 dreadnoughts, 247 cruisers, 381 frigates, one carrier, and a handful of fighters. We have lost nearly 320,000 lives, and the number of wounded requiring serious care is almost 35,000.}

Admiral Lakopoulos cleared his throat and spoke next in his terse staccato. {Humans, 4 dreadnoughts, 360 cruisers, 297 frigates, one carrier, 400 fighters. 305,000 killed, 36,000 wounded.}

{Admiral Rastias?} Lidanya inquired, with the gruff turian rattling off his litany. {As of last count, we have 8 dreadnoughts, 490 cruisers, 401 frigates and 57 fighters. Nearly 510,000 lost or missing, 73,000 reported wounded.}

Shala'Raan's report was little better, the burden especially heavy on the quarians whose numbers were small to begin with. {The quarians have 2 liveships, 1 offensive dreadnought, 234 cruisers, 576 frigates, and 685 fighters. Almost 285,000 will not see Rannoch again, and we have nearly 20,000 wounded more severely than just exposure.}

Alina was already doing the dreadful math in her head, listening to the remaining reports with one ear. The batarians and the merc-civilian fleet had lost over two thirds of their numbers, and Admiral Bat's small contingent was very nearly demolished, with only a handful of ships remaining in addition to the Admiral's own _Kwunu_ which was badly crippled but might be repairable. The rachni seemed to have fared marginally better than the others, but had still sustained heavy losses. With her neck tilted back and eyes aimlessly wandering from one crease in the ceiling to another, Alina missed whatever it was Lidanya said before Victus spoke up with the information she was anticipating with a tight knot in her stomach.

{Victory seems a fleeting concept in this moment,} the general and Primarch began, his voice bereft of the metallic edge that usually characterized the turians. {The situation on the surface is a complete chaos, with the communications only now coming back. All data we have is preliminary, and we hope that many of the currently missing will be found at a later time.

{As you may know, the primary planetside assaults focused on London as well as eight other significant Reaper concentrations. Each operation had between 250,000 and 400,000 troops—many of them untrained—with London actually getting the fewest in the hopes of further obscuring our true goal. All smaller resistance units were given orders to start attacks in the two previous days. By the current reports, all the large operations sustained losses on the order of 65-75% of their strength, and we do not believe the smaller operations fared much better.

{In addition to the killed and missing, we have confirmed just under 540,000 wounded requiring treatment, but the number has been growing by tens of thousands per hour as reports are starting to come in. And, of course, this is just from this operation. The… The situation on the planet is quite bad, much worse than Palaven or Thessia, but I would like to address this matter separately and when we have more information, if that is acceptable to admirals Lakopoulos and Bajic?}

It took a few seconds of silence for Lakopoulos' grunt of assent to interrupt Alina's silent prayer to any benign forces out there. She, in turn, sat up and straightened her jacket, trying to make herself look presentable before flicking on her video for the first time.

{Yes, Primarch. Thank you,} she saw her own image mimicking her words on the screen. She pulled her pad back into her lap, and suppressed a snuffle as she sent some data to the other participants. {I am sure Matriarch Lidanya will want to address the issue of prioritizing treatment with the number of wounded we have to deal with, but I wanted to add a word about the geth at this point, as we are still going over the contingents.}

Lidanya nodded her approval, and turned her eyes to look over the info Alina sent. The admiral snuffled again, turning her head to the side, and spoke up when she was sure everyone had gotten the data. {Just before the Crucible actually fired, we received a transmission from the Citadel, presumably from Commander Shepard. The analysis of the transmitted data by the AI of the _Normandy—_and yes, we can return to that point later—completed in the short window that we had indicated that the Crucible's mechanism was a targeted pulse to erase all of what could be termed the software and firmware of the Reapers.

{As some of you may know, the geth had incorporated some of the Reaper code in their quest to improve themselves,} she continued, leaving out the fact that EDI itself had some. {The AI made the assumption that the geth might be safest from the pulse if they powered off completely. If the…whatever circuits it is,} she waved the specifics away with her hands, {had time to clear out the…resonance— Uh. Essentially, if the pulse would not be able to detect running or previously running Reaper code, it would hopefully not affect the geth.

{The teams we have at the geth ships are estimating that maybe as many as 60% of the geth remaining at the time of the pulse had in fact been able to power down. The rest were, in fact, destroyed much as the Reapers were. As yet, we do not know how or _if_ we can restart the geth. Some of the Crucible team is being tasked to help there. The AI would probably also be helpful, but as you know, the _Normandy_ is still missing.}

Lidanya took the cue, {Thank you Admiral Bajic. Our team is indeed still on its way to Charon, and had not encountered _Normandy_ as of last contact. I would like to address the topic of the relay and the QEC first, and then return to the wounded and the evacuation efforts.

{All of you may not know…}

* * *

"Doctor Lawson?" the timid orderly called from the doorway with a knock. The sheet covering the shape on the cot rustled and shifted, but it took another knock before the sleepy murmuring and rocking transformed into a sitting young woman rubbing at her eyes, scratching her neck, and trying to tame the cloud of black hair around her head into something resembling a sensible hairdo.

"They are arriving in 20 minutes, doctor," the orderly ventured as the woman's eyes were starting to adjust to the light judging from the more infrequent blinking. "You wanted me to wake you up when they were coming? ChiefMed ordered them first to the _Danube_ for surgical treatment. They have a decent burn ward there, but we're still better set up for that. Would you rather—"

"That's fine, thank you," Miranda waved ambiguously at the young man at the door. "We're not going to have other victims come in for a couple hours still. I'll just hop over to the _Danube_ to assist in the surgery if I can, and then bring Shepard back over to _Tiber_ myself and we'll take care of her burns."


	12. Chapter 11

{However,} Lidanya was trying to get her voice heard over the cacophony of the channel with especially the mercenary, Dorner Vosque, having grown quite animated over the news that their way out of the Sol system was blocked with the Charon relay somehow broken. {_However—_ Please! The situation does not seem to be quite that dire—}

{What the hell is _not dire_ about being stu—} the man was yelling until Lidanya finally just muted his channel and returned to address everyone else.

{As I was trying to say, we do have some good news as well,} the Matriarch continued, {We have been able to reach both Thessia and Illium by QEC. Admiral Rastias reports that Palaven has also responded, and Admiral Bat has been able to contact Irune. The humans have also contacted the remaining crews at the Crucible docks…their other endpoints were obviously in Sol and Arcturus.

{All of these planets have reported the same things. First and most important is that they all saw the same pink energy field or pulse as we did, and that they are experiencing the same results with the Reapers dead, for want of a better word.}

Alina turned toward her yeoman as he refilled her tumbler and mused, almost to herself, "The pulse was _purple_, wasn't it? Not pink."

"Purple? Crimson or burgundy, if I may be so bold," the man replied after carefully replacing the stopper of the bottle. "Why do you ask, ma'am?"

The admiral waved the question away, and shook her head quickly. The yeoman nodded and turned to take his leave. She watched him pause to adjust the position of her cutlass hanging next to the entryway on his way out, just as Lidanya was moving on to her next point.

{…Second thing is that they had actually not been aware of possible relay problems. Each planet had received messages through the FTL buoys and some had even welcomed ships arriving via relays, indicating that at least some of the relays are functional. It is notable that all of our contacts thus far have really been from only one quadrant of the galaxy; teams have been tasked to try to chart all relay connectivity through the buoys and arrays. Admiral Bajic, I believe you had something to add here?}

{Yes,} the admiral jumped in after having to snuffle once again. {This news is of course great and gives us much hope, both in that the Charon relay may in fact be repairable and that _even if it isn't_, which is really the worst case scenario, there's a good chance that one of the closest relays to Sol will be functional. While it will not be a skip and a hop, the distances to Exodus, Horsehead, or even Annos Basin or Aethon are not insurmountable. There are also a number of uncharted relays even closer, with Theta-5 and Theta-7 only approximately 13 and 9 weeks of travel away, respectively. Naturally it's far from optimal to activate an unknown destination, but seeing as we just prevailed against an unimaginably powerful force that has dominated this galaxy for possibly millions of years, I believe we can at least leave that option on the table.}

{Thank you, Admiral,} Lidanya said nodding as she returned on the channel after setting down a bottle she had been sipping from while Alina spoke. {So while the situation is far from optimal, _Mr. Vosque_, I believe it need not completely dominate our decision making.}

{Fine. What else is there?} the mercenary inquired, his speech privileges evidently having been returned.

{Food and water are not an immediate concern,} the Matriarch replied. {We will need to chart Earth's resources as well as salvage what we can from the Citadel and the debris here, but right at this moment, our main concerns are still Search & Rescue, both up here as well as planetside, and the treatment of the wounded. Admiral Rastias, have you been in contact with ChiefMed?}

{Yes, Matriarch,} the turian affirmed, emphasizing his words with a nod of his head to the right. {As you mentioned earlier, there is some 220,000 planned capacity aboard the hospital fleet, and ChiefMed Nitaros thinks that it can be increased to 275,000 after the most critical cases are treated and some rooms can be converted, if absolutely necessary. She is still of the mind that only some 110,000 beds should be prioritized for the fleets and the rest can be used for the seriously wounded ground troops. The facilities on Earth must be charted but the initial assessment by the resistance command is that many of the more rural hospitals will be able to function at least at the level of basic care. The current plan is to mainly use the fleets for surgery and similar activities, and then offload the patients to recover either on Earth or possibly even the Citadel. Most of the fleet personnel not needing invasive care can be handled at the individual med bays. Do you have the status on the Citadel, Matriarch?}

Lidanya looked up from her lap with a raised brow. {Ah, yes. Thank you. The Citadel is both worse and better than we had hoped. It is almost certainly beyond repair, and we have completely lost three Wards and most of their inhabitants. On the other hand, Tayseri and Kithoi were both bravely defended by the residents and both seem to be salvageable even to the degree that we will be use them for additional space for refugees or as auxiliary hospital wards. Our teams are currently charting the situation, removing the seriously injured, and re-establishing the necessary life support systems and infrastructure.

{With this, I think we can adjourn for a while. We shall meet again in…three hours. By then, we should have some more information both from Earth, Charon, and the homeworlds. Everyone has their tasks. Lidanya out.}

* * *

Kaidan hadn't liked the look on the doctors' faces as they took over the Admiral's care. There was a veritable army of medical staff waiting to whisk the older man away to the med bay as they settled down in the _Montreal_'s shuttle bay, and Kaidan had tried to follow the hoverstretcher only to be turned back by either an orderly or the most massive doctor he'd ever met. The man had politely but firmly told Kaidan he would just be in the way, even taking away his trump card by addressing him as _Spectre_ Alenko.

The Spectre reflected that he would probably have wasted another few minutes of the man's valuable time with pointless arguing were it not for the Primarch, who had chosen that moment to inquire whether Kaidan could instead escort him to a conference room or cabin so that the turian could take part in some important vid meeting. The orderly had jumped on the opportunity and connected Kaidan with the ship's XO to find a suitable location, and then left with the gentle suggestion that, if he did not feel the need for an immediate medical himself, the Spectre would be welcome to use the _Montreal_'s showers, grab some clean clothes from the quartermaster, have something to eat, and _then_ wander down to the med bay for a check-up and hopefully some news about the admiral.

Kaidan had reluctantly but politely taken the Primarch up to the captain's cabin as the XO had suggested and left the turian and his guards there with the instruction to contact him if they needed anything, and sauntered down toward the crew decks.

Now, leaning forward with both arms against the wall, his right leg forward and the left one back to stretch his aching calves as the hot water rained on the back of his head and neck and cascaded down over his shoulders, arms, along his spine and over his hips, caressing and relaxing each muscle, the water swirling into the drain underneath him turning from almost black into brown and finally clear, the rising steam cleaning the dust and ash from his lungs…now he was seeing wisdom in this course of action. He straightened up and let the water hit his face, blowing it away from his lips as he rolled his shoulders and then brought his hands together behind his back, straightening his spine and raising his arms as far up as he could to open up the tightened muscles in his chest and shoulders, relieving the stress they placed on the opposing muscles in his upper back and neck. Gradually inching his arms further upwards, he went a good minute and a half holding his breath, clasped hands pointing directly backwards and chest puffed until finally slowly exhaling in time with bringing his arms down to his sides and then slightly forward, bending at the waist to touch the floor as the last of the air escaped his lungs.

Then, slowly inhaling as he straightened himself back up and took a step back to trigger the shower to turn off, he turned around to grab his towel, enjoying the coarse fabric on his skin as he dried off. He gave a grin and a laughter to the redhead in the opposite stall, who had apparently entered the showers sometime after him and was waggling her eyebrows and making unsubtle appreciative faces at him as he headed out to the lockers to pull on the familiar naval officer's on-ship jumpsuit he had managed to get from the quartermaster, who had also promised to have his armor and weapons cleaned and repaired.

Kaidan had actually seen the heart-throbbing roster update earlier, when he had wandered down to the mess after his shower and reviewed his feeds while refilling his stomach with some rather bland food of some sort—and not a few jugs of juice along with three foils of energy drink with a couple stuffed in his thigh pocket for good measure. He had tried to jump on the channel, but was unable to get a reliable planetside connection until now, a good half an hour later when he was sitting on an exam table in the med bay with a biodoc roughly poking at his implant port with various sensors to determine whether there was any damage from the shock he had received at the end of the battle.

He jumped on the channel as soon as the VI reconnect went through. {Shepard's seriously alive and well? That is some good news!}

{That so?} asked an icy voice.

{Jack…} Liara broke in, scolding the woman gently. {Yes, Kaidan, she is well enough. She is being transported to the hospital fleet. May already be there, in fact. We are not quite sure about the extent of her injuries, but Admiral Shepard said they were not life-threatening.}

{That…that _is_ great. Anderson…is less well. The doctors have been able to stabilize him, but the damage is extensive and there's no way to know if he'll pull through even if the better-equipped med ships can fix the injuries,} Kaidan recounted the report the orderly from earlier had delivered him. {He is going to be transferred either to the _Yangtze_ or the _Niger_…I'll see him there, and then I can go find the Commander and see if I can do anything for her.}

{Well, fuck, there's an idea! Being _nice_ to Shepard instead of being a treacherous, paranoid little bitch. Be fucking awesome if you were actually helping for a change and not—}

{_Jack_! That's not fair,} Liara gasped, {Kaidan, I apologize, it would be wonde—}

Kaidan dropped off the channel again before Liara could finish. As he hopped off the table with an all-clear and headed for Anderson's creche, he couldn't help thinking that the hateful woman wasn't being _entirely_ unfair.

* * *

"Holy. Fuck. Look at this, Dajeer," Cintzia said, pulling her colleague closer to her monitor, and was rewarded with a hearty exclamation as the younger surgeon saw the amount of artificial or artificially reinforced parts just in the abdomen and chest cavity of their patient.

"More human than human, doctors," an uncommonly accented voice said just behind them. As one, their heads turned to the woman garbed in full operation kit standing there.

"Do you have permission to be here, mizz…?" Cintzia inquired, her voice suggesting the newcomer probably didn't.

"Lawson. _Doctor_ Lawson. I am the Commander's…family practitioner, you could say. I helped deliver her into this world," Miranda responded coquettishly, shutting the surgeons up figuring out the statement for long enough that she could push her cart next to the medical HIs the duo had been using to guide their equipment and start hooking it up. She had, of course, obtained a permission to assist from ChiefMed easily enough since she was listed as one of Shepard's two personal physicians—knowing full well that security around the galactic hero would be high—but that didn't mean she couldn't _pretend_ she was swindling her way in.

"As you can see," she continued nonchalantly, "she has some unique advantages when it comes to getting blown up. Again. Or shot. Again. However, she's not limited to passive protection in the form of the alloy-reinforced bone structure and these various other bits. She has some active little helpers. In addition to myself, I mean."

Both surgeons had drawn closer by the time Miranda activated the nanites, and were treated to an almost art-like show on the monitors, of the little critters swarming around the Commander's abdomen, cutting, splicing, and regenerating tissue. Nanites weren't really a revolutionary thing, but this level of independence and proficiency certainly was. Miranda had to nudge the two human surgeons to get them back to work. "They're not going to do _all_ of it themselves, at least not very quickly. How about you start with realigning the leg and arm bones while these guys work, and I'll let you know when they're at a good spot so that you can finish the job. Don't worry about the burns and cuts, I'll take care of those when we get to the _Tiber_."

With the assistance of the nanites and the considerable skill of the surgeons, it only took a little under two hours to get Shepard more or less patched up. Miranda switched the nanites' operation mode to active recovery, which was too uncomfortable or outright painful to have on constantly but would be a considerable help in regenerating the injured tissues _now_, since Shepard would be kept in an artificial coma until the burns were mostly healed.

* * *

The burns were not as bad as she had feared, Miranda mused as she escorted the Commander's new creche out of the clean room. Mostly third-degree with little or no fourth-degree—they would be able to simply cut out the dead layers and regrow the skin. None of the other superficial wounds were particularly serious either. She had to admit she was a little surprised herself. At some level she thought that the Savior of the Galaxy _should_ have been hanging to life and only be rescued by heroic efforts of days-long surgery, but the truth of the matter was that even a non-augmented Shepard might well have survived the injuries. Not that Miranda wasn't glad, but it seemed anti-climactic somehow. _Too many vids, Lawson, too many—_

"Excuse me, doctor? Is that Commander Shepard?" a woman asked her, having stood up from a seat on the side of the corridor. Alliance, admiral, the family resemblance unmistakable in Miranda's quick analysis.

"Ah, you must be Admiral Shepard?" Miranda ventured and beckoned the woman to walk with her. "I'm not sure how much you know, but your daughter is fine…we fixed a few broken bones and the wound in her stomach, no complications. I'm taking her over to the _Tiber_ now, we have a better burn treatment center there and she can finish her recovery there. I assume you'll want to come with us now rather than later?"

"Yes, thank you," the admiral replied gratefully. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we have met?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners?" Miranda apologized, turning around to offer her hand to Hannah and continued, a little defensively, "I'm Miranda Lawson…Yes, _that_ Lawson. Worked for Cerberus, then had an epiphany. I won't make excuses for my past—"

"No need to, ms. Lawson. My daughter mentioned she had found some good people in Cerberus, and I figure you're one of those."

"Ah, well…thank you," Miranda said wrinkling her brow. "I'm sorry, I'm rather used to a more hostile reaction from Alliance personnel. Shep…Eevy showed me the error of our ways, if you'll allow the cliché, so I'm trying to make up for that now."

Clearing her throat, the admiral took a few quicker steps after they passed through a bulkhead, and peered into the little monitor set to relay an image of the patient.

"Oh, my poor baby," she said, her voice cracking as she returned to Miranda's side. "I know I should be glad with so many lives lost, but—"

"Ah, it's alright," Miranda comforted, awkwardly patting the older woman on the shoulder. "She looks bad but she can't feel a thing right now, and we'll probably have to strap her to the bed to keep her resting a couple weeks from now."

A wan but glad smile snuck up on the admiral's lips as they stood aside to let the shuttle bay staff load the creche into the shuttle along with five others, and then boarded themselves.

"I hope you don't mind, Admiral, I took the liberty to arrange two of your daughter's friends to come with us," Miranda noted as the shuttle hatch was closing, patting the enormous creche taking the space of almost three normal ones on one side of the little cargo bay.


	13. Chapter 12

The forest around Eevy was familiar, she had been here before. The tall, leafless trees with their silver bark and their infinitely repeating branches, each fork becoming a miniature version of the tree it was part of. She knew the way through the paths trodden by thousands of feet, the leaves that had always been there lining the packed dirt. The forest had burned once, long ago, her father gently reminded her as she set out to find the little girl. She knew she had followed the fleeting sounds then, pursuing the flickers of shapes as only a girl chasing birds could. She remembered every turn she had taken, and the lonely bench where she had realized she couldn't think her way back to her mother and father. She knew that's where the girl would be now, again. She knew Ashley would keep her safe until she got to her as the woman had then.

The ash was falling from the sky like snow, the fires years gone but the cloudless skies still cast a blue hue on all beyond and rained ash that covered her in a greasy, fine dust as she walked ahead toward the bench, the smallest movement crumbling the fragile structure of the flakes. The path behind was covered in dirty grey and tinted blue, but her footsteps, making small craters in the fine dust that exploded out and then fell down again ever so slowly, only lasted three trailing steps as she turned backwards to look for those who were looking for her, hoping that any moment she would see her mother, hear her father. There, the bench where she had waited, but she was not there now, and she did not understand why. She had known to not go any further, not even with Ashley and her favorite toy robot protecting her, but she was not there when she arrived.

Confused and alarmed, she looked around everywhere, tried to find the birds that had led her here but all she saw were the shadows of night descending from behind her, the trees becoming signposts, arrows urging her ahead. She wrote a message in the ash on the bench so that she would know to wait here if she came back. Her mother would find her here if she only found her way back and stayed. She had then. She took cautious steps toward the moons rising ahead of her, walking forward between the shadows until she came upon the end of the forest and the edge of the hill it had grown on for thousands of years. There in front of her, on the clearing where the forest started, she saw the girl walking up to the old man who had guarded the park for as long as she could remember.

"Did that all really happen?" asked the girl, her voice clear as crystal where Eevy stood, but when she tried to scream back, the ash stole her breath.

"Yes," the man said, surprised by the girl standing next to him, "but some of the details have been lost in time. It all happened so very long ago."

The girl reached up, lighting up the stars all around the moons. "When can I go to the stars?" she asked, pointing toward the bear in the sky.

"One day, my sweet," said the man, smiling at the blue eyes looking up at him.

"What will be there?"

"Anything you can imagine," the old warden replied after some consideration. "Our galaxy has billions of stars. Each of those stars could have many worlds. Every world could be home to a different form of life. And every life is a special story of its own."

* * *

Leaning on the metal railing of the bed, Kaidan wished he'd planned something to say before sneaking in. Liara was sleeping curled up on her cot next to the HI setup in the corner and, not wanting to disturb her, he was left to his own devices.

The Commander looked small and frail but peaceful resting inside a sterile barrier with a blanket carefully wrapped around her and tucked in tight. The part of her face not covered by bandages was a touch pale and covered in healing bruises and cuts and two thin tubes ran through her nose and mouth to provide air and nutrition, other tubes running somewhere underneath the blanket. Someone had come around and cut her burnt hair off, leaving an uneven shock of brown pointing in all directions. Kaidan reached to touch Shepard's shoulder but jerked his hand back just as it went through the barrier, reminded that even his scrubbed hands might still cause bacteria he'd rather not expose her to.

"Well, they say that you might be able to hear if someone talked to you," Kaidan said quietly, leaning closer so that his face was almost at the barrier, trying look into the brown eyes hidden behind lids closed with little strips of tape.

"It's hard to believe we actually did it. _You_ did it. This is more than an exclusive interview on the nets…everyone's going to be talking about you for millennia, Shepard. Some useless two-bit politician will try to steal credit, of course, but it was you who pulled everyone together.

"Because of us, all the worlds out there circling the billions of stars in the galaxy…all the untold trillions of people can live out their lives. We'll get the galaxy all connected into one big unhappy family. Hell, new species can reach for the stars and join us instead of having to sift through our ruins this time. You did it."

A soft snore startled Kaidan. As he looked over to Liara, still curled up with her knees drawn to her chest and arms wrapped around them with her head resting on top of the knee, he briefly wondered if she always slept like that – or if all asari slept like that, for that matter. This particular one seemed to be comfortable enough, just snuggled her head against her knee and wrinkled her nose. Kaidan could have sworn the human woman's brow and nose had twitched too, when he turned back to the Commander.

"I know you need to rest. You need to get stronger before you can come back, but don't forget about us. We're like a litter of kittens without you at the reins, and there's plenty of adventuring out there still…Eevy.

"The galaxy needs you around. Your friends need you.

"_I_ need you."

* * *

The seas of the moon above were flowing up and down in tide, the same tide that drew the ash back up to the skies and pulled Eevy forward and back as she tried to find a path down to the clearing below where the girl was pulling on the warden's sleeve.

"Tell me another story about the Shepherd," the smaller shape pleaded, her voice still ringing throughout the entire valley.

"It's getting late," the man said with a smile as the moons were parting their different ways, "but OK. One more story."


	14. Chapter 13

_A/N: Sorry about pushing back a day, there were things. Added a glossary entry about Cherenkov events and phonetic writing._

* * *

Karin Chakwas had always had a rather optimistic look on life behind her carefully cultivated serious, grim professional front, but even she had to admit to being decidedly concerned about their chances. Moreau had been out since the crash, and Heise had been out _during_ the crash, so they had no idea where they had ended up. All of their electronic devices were out from the EMP the ship had suffered, leaving only the mechanical life support equipment running, and nearly all technical staff was either gone or too sick to even try to get an emergency beacon online. As far as anyone could tell, they were drifting powerless either very close to or beyond the edge of the heliosphere, and technically outside Sol.

Only a few people had died of the radiation poisoning, but everyone was severely affected. The symptoms Karin observed suggested an exposure of almost 30 grays, which would have meant death in less than two days without medi-gel. The miracle cure had managed to alleviate the worst of the symptoms but now, some 65 hours post-event, just the violent nausea, diarrhea, malaise from decreased immunity, and the milder neurological symptoms had ground down even the strongest of the crew including Karin herself.

The only reasons they were alive at all, in contrast to all known Cherenkov events as far as she knew, had to have been the various improvements the _Normandy_ had undergone and the velocity they had exited…the shielding systems of the ship must have managed to stay online almost the entirety of the few seconds it had taken for them to emerge outside of the static Cherenkov field at the exit site.

Wearily glancing around from the seat that served as her bed on the starboard side of the former CIC, the command center more or less intact but completely useless without power, the only shapes she observed upright were Westmoreland, who had done an admirable job of taking over the physical side of helping the patients when Karin became too weak, and the three soldiers brave and well enough to try to implement Specialist Traynor's plan. All of the other survivors, 24 in total by last count, were lying in the seats or, in the case of the more severely injured like Moreau, on the few stretchers, cots, and mattresses they had been able to drag upstairs through the narrow secondary ladders and stairs.

Karin was too tired and too dizzy to care when the next bout of nausea came, all of her abdomen and back cramping as she heaved hopefully somewhere _next_ to her seat.

* * *

{I'm heading to the hangar now, Liara. I'll see you on the _Ascension_. Give her a kiss for me.}

{I will. See you soon,} the asari replied, and started the program for copying her data processing feeds into a secondary more aggressive filter that parsed out the less important things so that the trimmed stream could be handled by her omni while the unfiltered feed went through her normal processing back here. For the hundredth time she wished she had access to at least her _Normandy_ setup if Feron truly was beyond her reach…and for the hundredth time she mentally amended that she'd have her equipment destroyed a hundred times over if only the _Normandy_ crew was found instead.

She _knew_ that the ship was still somewhere in the vicinity of the Sol system. She had done the math. The little data they did have suggested that the frigate had attempted to escape the Crucible's long-distance pulse by plotting an FTL jump to Charon along the projected path of the Crucible pulse – the brilliant educated guess that it would be an unimpeded path had all the hallmarks of Joker's unparalleled helmsmanship – and the science team heading for the relay had found traces of a Cherenkov event all but confirming that the _Normandy_ had not been able to outrun the pulse. The protrusion in the Cherenkov field suggested that the frigate had exited FTL somewhere in a cone of travel only 2° wide at the origin. The problem was that given the possible distance of travel, the search area was 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic kilometers which, even factoring areas blocked out by planets and various other objects, was a _lot_ of space to cover if the troubled vessel was not broadcasting anything. It might take days still to comb the entire sector and, given that they had not located any signals, the only way the crew might still be alive was if they had had a complete electronic failure, and that did not leave them much time remaining after three days.

Admiral Sh…_Hannah_ had assured her that the Systems Alliance was devoting all available resources to the search, but there were so many other things that also needed resources that—

_Beep–eep_

The alarm going off brought Liara's focus back to the task at hand. She was fairly certain that at least the asari and the humans would support her claim, but she had spent the last day and a half preparing for all eventualities and building factual case files to persuade as many of the others as possible. With a last check to verify she had everything necessary with her and all possible data streams diverted to her omni, she pushed her chair back and around a full circle and a half, gracefully jumping off facing toward Shepard's bed.

She pulled on her new formal tunic as she took the few steps separating her from the bedside. She had requested to be sent one of the lab tunics she'd left in Deseado but instead of the scarce contents of her Martian locker, she had been treated to an almost epic account of incorrect labeling by an apologetic asari requisition officer. As partial recompense for what she described as gross incompetence, the animated young officer had offered Liara a finely tailored outfit that for reasons unclear was no longer deliverable but serendipitously happened to match Liara's measures—much better than any clothing she'd ever purchased herself, it had turned out.

The snugly fitting garment was made of supple, aged black leather with subtle white and gold trim, meticulously detailed all the way down to the slightly flaring coattails. Paired with matching pants and over a very well-cut grey undershirt, Liara thought it made her look quite presentable and, moreover, it was certainly nice to be out of various levels of armoring for a change. As much getting used to combat gear as she had had, she still felt most comfortable in simple, utilitarian civilian clothes – unlike Shepard, who seemed to always feel naked without a hardsuit on.

Touching her fingers lightly on Shepard's unblanketed shoulder and ineffectually trying to brush a few unruly locks of hair back behind the ear with the other hand, Liara smiled at her sleeping lover and ducked down to lightly kiss her on the forehead for Hannah, and on the cheek all for herself.

Straightening up, she took a last look at the HIs showing all vitals at good levels, and pulled up the datapad she had attached on a swivel on the railing of the bed. The doctors had been having trouble keeping Shepard's anesthesia up, with her body seemingly being able to process away what it saw as a toxin very efficiently – and furthermore, it did so in unpredictable jumps: a few times she had turned out to be able to handle double the amount of the sedatives she had successfully been given just a while earlier. They had managed to keep her under thus far but only with continuous supervision, the medical VIs unable to adjust their programming to reliably keep up without causing danger.

The last thing Liara wanted was for Shepard to wake up and not only be in pain, but also without any familiar faces around. Liara herself spent nearly every waking and sleeping hour in the room but even she had to leave occasionally. Hannah had been very busy after reporting back for duty and finding herself the third-ranking officer of Systems Alliance fit for duty, Miranda had _so_ many other patients she was helping, many friends were injured themselves, and the others came by when they could but they all had jobs to do, too.

To prevent Shepard fearing and worrying, should she wake when no-one was there, Liara had a copy of the roster they had been using since the battle update hourly as an image to be shown on the swiveled datapad so that Shepard could see at a glance what had happened to everyone. Then, for an overlay shown on top of the roster, she had painstakingly copied the strange, angular phonetic letters of the English language the humans used: "AI WIL BI: RAIT BÆK -LI" and finished it by drawing a bird and a few hearts in what she hoped formed a clear floating trail below the text. On a whim, she had also made her overlay lines the same color as her skin was, picked from a photograph, hoping that Shepard wouldn't find it too silly if she did see it.

"I _will_ be right back," Liara whispered, and rushed out to make it to the shuttle bay in time to get to the _Destiny Ascension_ before the meeting started.

* * *

Samantha was conflicted about sending the three soldiers to what amounted to a certain death even though they had all volunteered. A part of her—the one she wanted to scold—was glad that she was too sick to even seriously have to consider going herself, partly because she was afraid she'd try to avoid it and hate herself for it, and partly because she was afraid she might have gone.

She wasn't feeling particularly proud of herself or her plan but they had to try something…the medi-gel would only last another few hours if Befs was right, and then it would likely be in less than 10 hours that everyone would be dead or too weak to move at all. She had tried what she could to get any of the electrical systems working before she got too sick to stand, but she was mainly skilled only in using and combining the low-level systems to produce analyses rather than actual wiring and power management, and had not had any success except for shoring up the mechanical life support systems a bit.

Sighing and trying to shrug off her self-doubt in favor of pride for the three soldiers around her, Sam strained to lift her head to look them in the eyes. Shu Yu, Campbell, and Copeland had all gotten in their combat gear, and had applied some moldable plastic to cover as much of the weaker sections as possible since mobility was unimportant and it might give them an edge against the inevitable eezo contamination. While normally only dangerous in higher quantities and an exposure of hours, Dr. Chakwas had explained that in their weakened state even trace amounts of eezo could cause significant damage before they had a chance to try to decontaminate.

The three left with curt nods. There was not much to say as they knew what they needed to do, and a rousing speech or an applause did not seem appropriate in the situation. Sam started a timer on her omni when she heard the sound of Copeland welding the seam around the hatch covering the staircase they descended through. All the other connections from the Crew Deck had already been sealed to keep the lower level as a buffer zone between the Engineering Deck and the refuge they had established in the CIC.

She tried to estimate the time it would take for them to get to Engineering. They had gone down earlier and sealed the med bay and the AI Core as well as they could, and set up the equipment needed to try to seal Dr. T'Soni's former office which acted as their rather inappropriately named 'safe zone' if any of them were lucky enough to make it back there.

It would only take them a few minutes to get through the blast doors that Adams or someone else in Engineering had had the good sense and courage to shut down to try to ensure the ship was somewhat protected in case of a catastrophic engine failure, or contamination from getting out to the rest of the ship, even though it sealed everyone's fate in the lower levels.

Sam's plan was very simple and driven by necessity. With all their electronics gone, the only way they could create a long-distance beacon was by venting as much of the mass effect core as rapidly as they could. Just the eezo cloud itself would be fairly detectable, but if they were able to release it quickly and rapidly decompress it at the same time, the reaction should be pretty spectacular even at the star system level.

* * *

"…And, finally, the Systems Alliance of the humans is today represented by admirals Lakopoulos, Bajic, and Shepard," Lidanya said, nodding toward the trio seated next to the asari high command, and then looking straight at Hannah. "I am sorry that your daughter could not join us today, Admiral Shepard. As you may know, I believe we owe it to her to hear her input in this matter, and in fact all matters—"

"Forgive me, Matriarch," Hannah interrupted, "but if you'll allow, I believe we can indeed hear her opinion."

"I'm sorry, I—" a brief look of puzzlement passed over the matriarch's features until she understood. "I see. I assume she is outside?"

"She is, Matriarch," Hannah replied.

With a nearly imperceptible smile, Lidanya inclined her head toward the human admiral. "Very well, please have her join us."

Hannah nodded gratefully, and signaled the guards outside with a quick flick at her omni interface. Moments later, Liara T'Soni walked in and, as the room looked on baffled, navigated around the the assembled tables giving small smiles to the attendees she did recognize before joining the human contingent at their table, where she remained standing.

"I believe an explanation is in order," said Lidanya standing up herself and looking around to ensure she had everyone's attention. "Dr. T'Soni is invoking the right to speak as her bondmate, Commander Shepard."

The matriarch leaned forward with her hands on the table in front and, after securing an affirmation from both of the matriarchs at her side, glanced over to the humans and then looked down at nothing in particular in front of her.

"This aspect of asari culture may be unfamiliar to many of you, but due to the nature of the melding in the bonding process," she spoke in her usual direct but respectful manner, "each bondmate is legally considered to be both persons for the duration of the bond. Unlike the legal contracts most beings in the galaxy use for formalizing a relationship, the bond is unambiguous. Each bondmate will know enough of the other to be able to speak as they would, and abstain from speaking when uncertain. The bond will prevent one mate concealing an intent to deceive or otherwise abuse the bond so a continued bond is a mark of unquestionable trust or least acceptance of possible ill consequences."

Turning toward Liara, Lidanya greeted her in the traditional manner, and then addressed the crowd again, "The asari acknowledge Dr. Liara T'Soni as Commander Eevy Shepard for those things she is comfortable saying. Does anyone object?"

Admiral Lakopoulos seemed the only one to actually consider objecting until silenced by two stern pairs of eyes at his side. The only opinions voiced were, to Liara's great joy, in direct support of her by the few faces she knew in the crowd: both Primarch Victus and Garrus, Grunt of course, the sweet thing, Captain—no, Major—Kirrahe as the lone salarian representative, Shala'Raan and, to Liara's surprise, Han'Gerrel, and even the asari who was acting as the voice of the rachni queen intoned the queen's support in her strange distant voice.

Lidanya acknowledged the consensus with a nod, and turned on the holoprojection in the center of the _Ascension_'s conference room to start tackling the issue they had all assembled in person for.


	15. Chapter 14

_A/N: Glossary entry added for datapads._

* * *

As Liara sat down next to Hannah, she was amazed how simple it had all turned out to be in spite of her concerns. Foremost she was still impressed that Hannah had only hesitated the shortest of moments when Liara had proposed the idea—the woman had just looked at her intently a moment, and then grabbed her in a tight hug and whispered "Of course you may." It was nothing short of astounding as she thought back to it.

Liara had been feeling a little guilty that she got to spend most of her time keeping Shepard company with everyone else scrambling around trying to create some order in the chaos they found themselves in. Jack had gone straight back to Earth to find the kids as soon as she had been treated for her injuries, with James in tow. Garrus hadn't even left the planet and still led the search and rescue efforts in the London area. Grunt had gone back planetside as soon as he had been stitched back together and had seen that Shepard was alright. Kaidan was out searching for the _Normandy_. Tali had a message relayed to Liara to tell everyone she was well but confined to a bed for a few weeks. Miranda had been tirelessly working on trying to help the thousands with horrific burns and still managing to check in on Shepard many times. Even Kasumi—Zoe, Liara mentally corrected—had tried to slip from under the nurses' watchful eye to help out in the Citadel but had been caught and ordered back to bed rest in a temporary med bay on what remained of the Tayseri Ward.

Liara _had_ been working around the clock the best she could to help the science teams at the Charon relay, and on Mars, where some of the Reaper ships had been taken, sifting through mountains of data they were producing and trying to go through her mind and her data banks for any data that could help, prothean or otherwise. Aethyta—or someone else in the asari fleets—had even arranged her very limited burst access through the QEC, to download specific resources unavailable locally. She had only slept about six hours in total in the previous three days and was utterly exhausted, but she couldn't help but be _happy_, and it was so unfair to everyone else.

Hannah had had it especially hard with what must have been all of the fear, loss, and pain of four years crystallized in the form of her peacefully sleeping daughter, and being unable to be there. Liara could understand the woman's feelings very well…the first weeks after Shepard came back to her had been filled with a constant terror that she would just be gone _again_ if Liara turned her head away for even a moment.

Last time Hannah had been able to come over to visit, Liara had just been about to excuse herself as she usually did, but the woman had instead invited her to stay and sit with her. The initial few minutes of awkwardness had vanished in a puff of laughter when Hannah had caught Liara staring at Shepard and her mother in turns, and Liara by way of explanation blurting out that the human tendency for children to look like their parents was _fascinating_.

Hannah's brief foray into Aethyta's similar remark and Liara's explanation about asari typically not looking like either one of their parents broke the ice enough that the two felt comfortable talking, even if it was mostly only about the recent events or Liara filling in gaps in the past 4 years.

Liara had been staring at Shepard again, having lost track of what Hannah was saying, strangely exhilarated by the similarities and differences she saw in the physical attributes, demeanor, mannerisms and even the speech patterns of mother and daughter. Asari children, of course, took after their parents in many respects but the similarities in the humans were just so…visceral. She didn't even notice smiling at Shepard's sleeping form until the admiral, with a smirk of her own, tapped her on the shoulder.

A more serious expression taking over her features, Hannah had leaned in a little closer and almost conspiratorially asked the asari if she had heard anything about the larger summit of all of the military leaders that was to take place in about 30 hours. While Liara had gotten some hints about it in her feeds, she was quite surprised to find out that the extremely respected Matriarch Lidanya herself had remarked to the human admiral Bajic that she deeply regretted that Commander Shepard would not be there when her opinions and her voice would have been extremely important. Even Bajic didn't know or hadn't told Hannah what he topic of the summit was to be, but had been impressed by the Matriarch's lament to such a degree that she, in turn, mentioned it to Hannah.

Even as Hannah still spoke, Liara's thoughts shot back to the conversation she had had with Aethyta just the previous night. Her father had been regaling her with various stories from her past, one of which—now clearly not coincidentally—had been about the meaning and implications of the asari bond.

Liara had asked Hannah before even thinking about how the whole concept might sound to a human.

* * *

Miranda nodded at the guards—two humans and an asari—keeping a watchful eye on the Commander's cabin, and slipped between them to the scanner embedded in the door. She felt more than saw the familiar tiny burst of light in her eye from the retinal scanner even as the second panel both checked her ID and scraped her palm to extract a DNA sample before the door quietly slid open. She took a step inside and casually took in the room as she waited for the door to close and shut out the cacophony of the wards outside.

Everything was as before: the right half of the room pristine white plastic and metal, the soft hum and infrequent beep of the various monitors accompanying the deep, even sounds of breathing. A few chairs had been placed around the bed but they, too, were neatly aligned against the wall, contributing to the peaceful harmony.

The left side was…not messy, but haphazard. An impressive array of HI panels and projections filled the entire four-meter back wall, the thickest concentration around the small table and chair in the corner. A glass with a few fingers of some juice remaining sat on the table next to a pile of datapads, and the slightly oddly shaped short and wide cot next to the table was unmade, the pillow lying on the floor and the blanket tangled up near the wall. Liara had discarded her white-and-blue combat armor in a pile in the opposite corner, leaving Miranda briefly wondering what the asari _was_ wearing instead.

With a little sigh and a shake of her head, Miranda stepped over to the desk. She knew better than to try to get into the computers; she had thought herself rather good at espionage and various disciplines of cyberwarfare, and still did, but the archeologist had run circles around her. She knew Liara wouldn't mind if she _tried_ to get in, but saved herself the embarrassment of failing anyway, settling for stacking the datapads neatly instead.

Moving the juice glass in the other corner of the table, just a centimeter from each edge, she nodded happily at the desk before pushing the chair neatly underneath it and moving on to making the bed. The armor could go in a laundry bag next to the door so she'd remember to pass it on to one of the guards when she left.

Satisfied with the state of Liara's half, Miranda sauntered over to her patient. Leaning over the bedside, she carefully pushed aside Liara's rather endearing message pad, peeled back the blanket covering Shepard, and gingerly prodded the various burn sites to gauge the woman's recovery. The HIs could have told her all and more but, after the last time, she would never again rely on computers alone.

At least this time Shepard would not have to spend as long trying to get back into shape, she mused as she thoroughly examined the Commander for any signs of problems undetected. Almost all of the rather impressive musculature was still there, the force-fed nutrients keeping her body from catabolism.

The abdominal wound, unlike the slower skin regeneration, was healing very swiftly. The jagged piece of glass that had been responsible for the ragged wound had made a mess inside, but had also blocked some of the bleeding. Shepard's extensive internal weaving had prevented it from exiting at the back, and kept the tissue from being completely torn into pieces, so all the material was still there for the nanites to reuse—and the surgeons had done an excellent job getting everything back in place. They had even managed to save most of the shard itself, the central piece being almost exactly the size and shape of Miranda's hand if she squeezed her fingers together. The greenish-black thing was currently sitting in a jar neatly in the back corner of the bedside table where she had set it on her first visit.

As her last checklist item she made sure that all the various tubes going into and out of Shepard were functioning and contained the right color of liquid, and then very carefully pulled the blanket back up and tucked it in tight. With a final look at the HIs she rotated the datapad back over Shepard's head and then pulled up a chair, set it in a 45-degree angle to the bed and wall, and slumped down.

Procuring a bottle of wine and a cup from the stack of disposables from the cabinet underneath the bedside table, she poured herself a good measure and let the wine sit for a moment while she unfastened the front of her uniform tunic and unwound the band holding her hair up in a tight bun throughout her work shifts. She kicked off her horrible little clogs and pushed them underneath the other chair.

Vigorously rubbing at her aching scalp and lazily swirling the wine in her cup, she propped her legs up on the bedside railing and gave her patient a sidelong glance.

"You know, Shepard, as much as I like your company especially when you're quiet, I _really_ need to get some friends who aren't unconscious most of the time," she muttered, closing her eyes and sipping her wine before leaning her head back against the wall.

* * *

"Despite this threat being over, as far as anyone can tell," Lidanya started, "_I_ believe its greatest lesson is that we must all stand together. We may feel complacent in our victory and we may feel that each civilization must focus on itself to rebuild and only then worry about anyone else. This would be a mistake."

The matriarch paused to sweep her gaze around the room, bringing the weight of her years and authority on each delegation in turn.

"Each time there has been a crisis, be as it may that all past ones pale in comparison to the Reapers," she began, eyes lingering on the volus table, "only cooperation has seen us through. Yet every time we have drifted apart shortly after, leaving the door open for another cataclysm to creep up on us. Whether it's the influence of the Citadel or some other mechanism of the Reapers trying to keep us apart, or merely our own failings, we now have the opportunity to ensure that it never happens again.

"The Council is no more. Councilor Sparatus died heroically aboard the _Naros_. Te— Councilor Tevos saw the battle through but she…is no longer with us. She felt unable to to cope with her inaction having played a part in…all this. Councilor Osoba never had the opportunity to join the others. He is missing and presumed dead on Earth. Councilor Valern's whereabouts are unknown and we have had no other contact from the salarians despite multiple efforts.

"All of our governments are in disarray or completely demolished, but it will not be long before they start organizing themselves, and I am very concerned that they will fall right back into their old patterns or even worse, not even re-establishing the Council. Time is of the essence."

Chatter was starting to pick up all around the room when Lidanya turned off the holoprojection and, sighing deeply, stepped into the center of the room, hands clasped behind her back. "I know how this will sound to many of you, but I will say it anyway, and not without serious consideration."

Pausing for effect, Lidanya drew to her full height. "I propose that we," she said, gesturing around the room, "reach a consensus on a general outline of how galactic government and cooperation should be organized, and present it to the civilians as a unified fr-"

"You want to create some kind of a military junta? _Now_? You want a _coup_!" Lakopoulos was shouting at the asari, having shot up from his seat as soon as he had heard the word 'civilians'.

With that, the room descended into a brief chaos of overlapping shouting, the volus and the mercenaries and merchants especially vociferous. More than one person had stood up to argue for or against what they had heard, trying to shout louder than the cacophony. Lidanya was trying to both get the room to settle back down as well as argue with one of the asari commanders who seemed vehemently opposed to the plan. Both Bajic and Admiral Shepard were arguing animatedly with Lakopoulos, and on the other side of the room, Shala'Raan was engaged with Han'Gerrel, their faceplates almost touching and hands waving every which way as points were emphasized or torn down.

Even the normally reserved and taciturn turians were standing and trying to get the situation to calm down, only to be shouted down by Vosque who noted that the turians already _had_ a military junta so they wouldn't care anyway. Garrus looked ready to have a go at the man until, finally, the combined efforts of Lidanya and the krogan delegation following Grunt's example in shouting for silence bore fruit and the room started quieting down. Everyone was still quite excited, some like Lakopoulos even remaining standing, but grudgingly yielded Lidanya another turn to speak.

"I am sorry," the matriarch said with her elbows at her sides, hands raised and palms forward in a gesture of apology and acquiescence, a rare stammer in her voice, "I should have tried to present my case— Admiral, please! It is hard to present my thoughts on this matter— this matter, but I wish to assure you _all_ that I— I certainly do not _want_ to establish any kind of a military dictatorship."

"What I _want_ is to— Ah, actually…let me step aside for a moment, if I can. _This_ is why I wished that we could have Commander Shepard present for this meeting," she continued, turning toward Liara. "Dr. T'Soni, would you be willing to speak on behalf of your bondmate on this issue?"

Liara, who had been frantically writing on her omni ever since she first saw where Lidanya was going to go with her speech and had barely noticed the commotion around her, looked up at the matriarch and nodded before self-consciously standing up. Tugging and smoothing her tunic, head tilted down and eyes downcast, it took what to her felt like an eternity before she lifted her gaze. Trying to acknowledge every single person in the room and finally settling on looking mostly at Garrus, she forced her hands to her sides and spoke, eyes still on the friendly turian face, "Yes, Matriarch, I believe I may have some views to share that could benefit this discussion."

* * *

"The resilience of the krogan is legendary, but _this_ is outright ridiculous," a booming voice said somewhere, echoing all around Urdnot Wrex, its power making the metal underneath him tremble and vibrate.

"That's not how the line goes," Wrex muttered to himself and started reciting the story of the three worms again from the start. As he wove the story, he could hear the roaring of the Maws, feel the thumping of the calls and the earth trembling as the beasts emerged all around, the hot sand raining down on the heroes facing down the three greatest Maws ever to roam Tuchanka.

The children gathered all around him were looking at him in awe, tugging at his arms and legs in their excitement, urging him to keep going. Magnanimously he agreed, turning the lighting up just a little so that the tykes wouldn't scare and then leaned down, his hands painting a picture of the scene of horror the two mighty warriors found themselves in. So vividly did he tell it that he almost felt the splashes of acid and scrapes of teeth and razor-sharp scales wounding the badly outnumbered krogan through their ornately crafted ancient and magnificent armor, their javelins and swords thwarted time and again but still they kept at it, trying to retreat into a crevice or cave in the rocks nearby. Slowly they made their way there, running when the beasts went under and bravely defending when they emerged again. Their shields and armor nearly burnt through by the vile, viscous acid they finally reached the cave and…Wrex drew back up, smiling smugly at the children with their eyes wide and mouths agape.

"And the rest I will tell you tomorrow," he said and barked a laugh as he leaned back into his chair, letting the supple, firm material envelop him as he sunk deeper back and closed his eyes for a nap with the little ones running around the chair chasing eachother with their neverending energy.

* * *

"We spoke on the topic of galactic government often," Liara started, "As you may know, Commander Shepard was very…displeased with both the civilian governments and the military organizations of the assembled civilizations, and particularly disappointed by the inaction of the Council. All of the time we spent trying to get everyone to come together cost millions, perhaps _billions_ of lives."

The rapt attention in the room, something that would previously have caused her to utterly lock up, now relaxed Liara a bit and she leaned her hands on the table in front of her. Alternating between glancing down and letting her eyes wander among the assembled faces, making eye contact without really _looking_, she continued slightly more confidently, "There are two things that I can mention."

"Firstly," she said, glancing at Admiral Lakopoulos on her left, "there must be a Council, although I cannot speak to whether she would disallow any active military personnel from being on it. The Council should not be by invitation, a point she feels strongly about, but instead initially admit all the species that took part in the war against the Reapers, including the geth and the rachni, and subsequently allow any spacefaring species that agrees to whatever rules and laws are set forth to send a representative. How the representative is chosen is up to the species."

"Of course, based on what we have learned of the protheans, we should probably not formulate it as merely a spacefaring species, as it is fully possible that there exist or emerge for example symbiotic species, and the matter of uplifted species must be decided—" she began, catching herself just before going into a dissertation.

"There is a single exception," she warned, expression still solemn, her eyes seeking out the salarian captain in the back of the room, "With apologies to Major Kirrahe, who fought bravely in our common front, Commander Shepard feels that the salarians should not be allowed to join the Council, and would only be allowed an ambassador until after a review."

Kirrahe's expression was hard for Liara to decipher, but she told herself that she did not, at least, detect outright anger. Still speaking almost directly to the captain, she continued, "If I may add a personal opinion, I believe that the Commander's position is perhaps too punitive and motivated by a feeling of betrayal, but it is nevertheless hers."

As she paused to consult her omni, Liara heard quiet muttering spark up and noticed not a few glances toward the salarian although, so far as she could tell, none with animosity toward the man himself. The earlier arguments had not started back up and, to Liara's great relief, even admiral Lakopoulos had seated himself.

"The second matter is simple," she started a little too loudly after her pause and continued, in a lower voice, "There _must_ be a galactic military body. This—"

A brief storm of objections rose until Lidanya managed to quiet the room by bidding everyone to postpone arguments until Liara had finished.

"Thank you, Matriarch," Liara said with a nod toward the older woman. "I understand that this may be a controversial topic, but the Commander strongly feels that a unified military would have performed better and faster. I must admit that I am not absolutely certain on her position on the specifics, but I believe it is fair to say that she wishes to see an admiralty board paralleling the Council in that each Council species may also send a member to the board. All militaries are ultimately under the Board's command, and they in turn under the Council's. There should be slow progress toward a mixed military, perhaps initially by…what is the term, simple officer and crew exchanges. I am certain you all are aware of the success the _Normandy_ had with a very diverse crew.

"And yes," she raised her voice slightly to stave off the objection Lakopoulos was about to make, "despite the evidence the battles on the ground on Earth and Palaven gave us of the will of everyone to work for a common cause, no species would be _required_ to take members of foreign forces in their planetary defense units.

"This is all I can offer on behalf of Commander Shepard. Hopefully it is of some help," she said quickly, and sat back down with her eyes glued on the table in front of her and hands tightly clasped in her lap. Arguments were rekindled all around her and Lidanya was trying to speak over the noise, but it took Hannah's warm, reassuring hand squeezing her forearm before Liara paid any attention to where the discussion was going.


	16. Chapter 15

_A/N: As always, thank you for the reviews, PMs, faves, follows, and other contacts, I really appreciate every one, they make this all that much more worthwhile, keep them coming :)_

* * *

"Know what's shittier than having to write letters to the families of those you failed to bring back?" James asked without turning his head when a soft shadow fell next to him, half-heartedly pitching a rock at some plastic floating by. "When you gotta do it and you know they're probably dead too."

Even the afternoon light was brittle and pale, the dust and smoke high in the atmosphere diffusing Sol's bright light. The earlier constant showers of meteors had subsided, with only a rare few tails of fire tracing falling debris in the sky. The air close to the ground had been fluctuating between nearly clean and heavy curtains of dust and ash. Now only the thinnest veil obscured vision far in the distance, the immediate surroundings visible in all their desolate, faded glory.

"That's a sad way of looking at it," Steve said as he plopped down next to the sullen marine sitting on short, mostly intact steps that had at some point lead right down to the river, maybe for mooring boats. "Even if it might be true. Not _everyone_ is dead and not everything is gone, after all."

"Esteban!" James exclaimed with a wan smile, dropping the cache of rocks from his cupped hand and grabbing the other man in a friendly neck lock. "What'cha doing here? You OK? Your page said you got shipped to some Frenchie _l'oppital_."

"What? No…I _flew_ a couple VIPs over to the continent and got stuck without a transport until Dr. T'Soni got me a berth to orbit. Just had a couple scrapes and bumps, and some hairline fractures. Have you not been reading your mail again? I knew you'd worry for me," Steve teased.

"Aw, hell," James grunted, tossing his head back in mock disgust, "you know I never read it! Besides, I've been busy trying to keep Jack from getting into too much trouble."

"Jack, huh?" Steve asked, flashing a grin. "No clever nickname yet? Although I guess following her around like a puppy _does_ buy you some time to come up with one."

"It's not like that, I- …Oh, shut up," argued James lamely. "What _are_ you doing here, anyway?"

Nodding his head back toward the command post, Steve drew James' attention to the shuttle parked nearby. "Dr. T'Soni was finally able to get us a shuttle, so I came to pick you guys up until it's needed for something else. And Grunt, if he wants a lift too. Should be easier than walking all over this crater."

"You can say that again. I don't think I've _ever_ walked this much, and we still got another two kids to look for," James said with an emphatic nod. "She's up there with some major who supposedly has some info."

"Yeah, I talked to her. She's ready to go whenever you get your stupid ass in gear, as she put it," Steve replied with a nudge. Jack had in fact been a bit more elaborate about the situation, asking Steve to see if he could get his friend to cheer up a little bit. Apparently the man had been just sitting and staring into the distance any time he was left to his own devices and, with the disorganized rescue efforts, Jack had thought it best to drag him along where she knew he could be kept busy.

James snorted and kicked a few pebbles into the water, gazing at the flotsam lazily passing by underneath for a few seconds before pushing himself off the steps and offering his arm to pull Steve up.

* * *

It seemed to take Kaidan an inordinately long time to shake off the remnants of sleep, something tugging him back toward a slumber as he tried to will himself up. It certainly wasn't the first time he had made do with very little sleep, but he'd always been one to be able to bounce right back into action even after the briefest of naps. He flipped on the general channel on his comm to try to keep himself alert while mustering the energy to get himself unstrapped from the sleeping pod. He had been pretty light on sleep after essentially usurping the Normandy search effort, not quite trusting anyone else to do it right.

The _Leyte_ was a smallish frigate, one of the oldest ones still in commission, and with a full rescue crew it was bursting at the seams. The captain had been kind enough to offer a more permanent bunk in the officers' accommodations but Kaidan had refused, arguing that his varying schedule would cause unnecessary disruption to the otherwise strictly shift-based sleeping arrangements already working at capacity. He had been rather pleased that he'd gotten right back into the grunt habit of just using whichever pod was free despite his fears that the years had gotten him too used to better accommodations.

Having managed to actually get out of the pod he yawned deeply, rubbing his neck around the implant more out of habit than an acute ache; years of consistently waking up with a sore neck had a way of affecting one's morning routines. Sluggishly he made his way toward the locker room to get a fresh jumpsuit, nodding in response to various curt salutes and exchanging a few words with the corporal in kitchen duty. Nabbing two juice packs and something that was supposed to be a sandwich, Kaidan decided to change his plan of a quick shower and trudging up for a sitrep. Reorienting back in the direction of the lounge, he scanned for a free seat to see if an uncharacteristic slow start might resolve the equally uncharacteristic fuzziness he had still not quite woken into.

A good fifteen minutes later he had finished his breakfast and managed to catch up on the public news feeds the command had set up for the Sol system, noting with a flash of elation that there was a new feature of 'Galactic News' which true to its name actually had a few short items from some of the larger extranet news networks. At the same time, Kaidan had to admire the PR decision to allow through both optimistic and more tragic messages, knowing that a less savvy operation would have tried to paint the situation outside Sol many shades brighter than it actually was and lose credibility in the process.

As it was, _any_ news was good news, a sign of life picking back up somewhere.

His head still foggy and his eyes feeling as if he was wearing goggles strapped on too tight, he was thinking about including a trip to the med bay in his plans even though his omni's temperature and heart rate readings seemed mostly fine. The general preparation alert chime in his ear made the decision for him as he was throwing his packaging into the recycler. Captain Calitx spoke up on the general channel a few seconds after, confirming that something was indeed going on at long last.

{Full readiness, the asari picked something up on the long range. It's almost all the way to the heliopause but still in the sector. We are now confirming a massive energy signature in the area also,} the captain said, clicking the general channel off without continuing his explanation.

Kaidan scrunched his eyes and shook his head as he descended the few steps down to the CIC, or triple-C for Command and Control Center as it had still been called when the _Leyte_ was commissioned. The captain was standing at the port side navigation array along with the XO and a few of the technical or comms specialists.

"Ah, Spectre, good," the captain greeted the newcomer as Kaidan rounded to the clustered group. "This might actually be something. There's what seems to be a vast eezo cloud right here," he said, pointing at a small dot in the search sector projection. "The asari agree on the composition analysis. This amount is definitely from a non-natural source, and none of our systems are registering markers of an actual explosion. This cloud is either from a catastrophic engine failure that did not lead to the destruction of the craft, or an intentional release. If I didn't know better I'd say it was a cruiser or even a dreadnought, but I believe the _Normandy_ had something of a special drive core even for a Tantalus vessel?"

"You're correct. Seems like a good find, Captain," Kaidan nodded his approval, trying to keep the flare of hope from creeping into his voice. "You have already set course there, I'm sure?"

"Yes sir," the XO piped up from the other side of the HIs. "We, the _El Alamein_, and two of the asari ships are within a reasonable range and we are all moving to intercept. On that note, captain-"

"Ah, yes," the captain nodded at the younger officer, "I think we can bring the _Ob_ closer now. Alert them, and make sure our medical staffs are ready."

Kaidan nodded at the assembled crew and turned around to jog down to suit up, hearing the captain holler that the Spectre would have nearly 45 minutes to get everything ready.

* * *

The _Normandy_ was a sad sight floating lazily away from the eezo cloud, dragging a tail behind it in a slow spin. The rescue frigates had been maneuvering to a better intercept position where they could try to stabilize the craft's movement before trying to board, all the while mindful that too strong an opposing force could accidentally stress the possibly compromised hull too much. Both of the human ships lacked some of the desired agility and it fell on the asari _Serra_ to match the powerless frigate's vector in order to try to attach its mid-range grapplers and then slowly bring both vessels to a simple direct vector at a minimal speed – which, counterintuitively, was quite a bit easier than trying to keep the ship in place if Kaidan remembered the rescue lectures right.

Kaidan was watching the tactical overlay feed showing the ship just outside as they were moving closer from their initial position about two kilometers away. He'd been extremely relieved to see the first scans and images of the _Normandy_ showing it mostly intact with fairly minimal hull damage. Sitting closer, their scans had confirmed that there were no detectable energy signatures aside from some magnetic fields, possibly from the emergency gravity. Nobody had invented a general-purpose life sign scanner yet, but the thermal and radiological imaging they were able to get suggested there might be a concentration in the central portion of the ship, possibly where the CIC or the mess hall were located.

The eezo contamination did not force special equipment beyond normal hardsuit filtering and the radiation levels were all but negligible, removing the need to use the hazmat fittings. Kaidan had informed the ten-person S&R squad of the _Leyte_ that only two would be required to wear the full kit but a few others had opted to incorporate some of the supplemental filter units and plating. Almost the entire medical crew was also in the shuttle bay; with the _Ob_ less than two hours out by the earliest time they could hope to have people out.

Kaidan had only participated in one non-pod rescue before and this one looked to shape about the same. With limited options for docking, the _Leyte_ had been assigned to attach to the main airlock and—

_Clank_

—Then it would be Kaidan's turn. Their side of the connective tunnel opened up in just a few seconds, after verifications had been made that the corridor was stable and the ships were properly synchronized. Checking for confirmations from his squad and the medical staff, Kaidan flicked his primary channel to the rescue coordination and, after verifying all four ships and their rescue teams were online, headed into the corridor.

Kaidan didn't bother knocking. It might actually have been audible in the ship, but he figured that connecting the auxiliary power to get the door open might have the same effect anyway. On his left, one of the two engineers plugged the system in and barked the order to divert power to the cabling from the _Leyte_. A few moments's wait brought life to the external access panel the man had opened, and a little tinkering located the wires responsible for locking the outer door. With nary a sound, the hatch popped slightly out and down toward the aft.

Kaidan helped with his biotics, trying to push little claws of energy in through the small openings around the hatch as two of the burlier marines were inserting leverage tools through the side and the bottom of the hatch. A few minutes' work actually got the hatch opened, and the group marched in with two techs setting up a barrier generator to protect the ship in case the airlock broke free.

The auxiliary power had actually managed to get through the circuits in the decon airlock and, with much less protection from external access, the squad was able to get through the two remaining hatches into the ship without much trouble. Leaving the engineers to shore up the doorways, Kaidan dashed off toward the CIC with the first shapes clearly visible all the way from the fore.


	17. Chapter 16

The consensus was tenuous at best, but it was there. Liara felt the shift in the atmosphere of the room shortly into the arguments following her speech, and saw that Lidanya had noticed it too. Liara had to admire the skill with which the matriarch wove her way from contrition to controlling the flow of the discussion, initially steering it away from the divisive topics and only bringing it back when she felt the group had amalgamated around the idea.

Liara herself had stayed mostly quiet, thinking she had little to add. She was no soldier or politician, and having seen the struggles of pulling the galaxy together even in the face of such a universal threat and the ultimate success of their combined strength, she could not help sharing Shepard's desire to use whatever leverage they now had to ensure unity in face of the adversity that was sure to come. She had seen enough of the reality of politics that she harbored no naïve dreams of altruistic stewards, but perhaps it was possible to tie everyone together and across tightly enough that everyone had an interest in the welfare of the others…

The biggest sticking point, one that Hannah and Liara shared, was that the militaries should not be demanding anything. Lidanya had deftly, and with possibly not unexpected support from Victus, brought the discussion to the principles that Liara had laid out. Going around the room she tried to gauge the reactions of the various factions, and Liara noted with interest that essentially no-one objected to the ideas of expanding the Council or creating a joint Admiralty Board under which all the militaries would work. The two asari at Lidanya's side seemed somewhat resistant to the idea of acceding so much of their power in the council, and the support for excluding the salarians was rather evenly divided.

"All the same," said Admiral Bajic in a lull from the other end of their table, "we all know how close we were to losing _everything_. We know that the Council failed, that our governments failed, and that we failed. We know it better than anyone else, or does anyone disagree that we _saw_ the apocalypse?"

Noting the expressions of agreement all around the room, Liara leaned back slightly to glance at the small woman who had gradually taken the responsibility for the human contingent, the senior Admiral Lakopoulos still watchful and thoughtful, but apparently happy to pass the politics to someone else.

"Even so, _we_ can never sell the idea," the admiral continued, "There's only one person who can. But, if we all agree to _reluctantly_ support this plan when it is presented, I think it has a chance of going through."

There were not a few wry expressions around the room at the common military refrain, but the consensus was there. Lidanya smiled appreciatively at Bajic, and spoke up the first time in a few minutes. "I thank each of you for your input on this issue. I suggest that we all take a few days to think about it, perhaps discuss it with whatever government contacts you have, too.

"For now, I believe there are some other matters that must be discussed. Take a short break, we'll continue in a few minutes. Anyone not part of the operative command is welcome to leave or stay as befits your contingent!"

* * *

The jolt and rumble were much less violent than Sam had expected, leaving her wondering if the pressure release had been enough for a brief moment before the whole deck floor creaked inwards as the pressure equalized in the bottom decks. Everything seemed to hold as it should but, rolling over to her side, she glanced at Gabby in the hopes that the other woman had a clearer spell to be able to reassure Sam that she hadn't doomed the entire ship with this desperate plan of hers. The young engineer had been invaluable trying to keep the _Normandy_ safe in the battle but the…whatever it was that had happened, it had tossed poor Gabby around from the secondary straps she had been using in the med bay, as it seemed was the case with most of the crew who had not been attached at a primary seat.

Without the dampers and only minimal gravity, she felt a slow, dizzying spin start rolling the ship this way and that, lifting people and loose things around the CIC. Gabby probably wasn't in danger of floating away but Sam grabbed her by the waist and held her down all the same, finding solace in the raspy breaths and thready heartbeat under the lightly armored shirt pressing against her ear, almost masked by the gurgling of the stomach as they were.

Sam could never have believed that a situation of life and death could be so utterly boring. With absolutely nothing to do but feel miserable, even Bethany finally having to lie down to avoid stumbling over someone and hurting them, the initial sparks of hope of every single clank from somewhere around the hull being the rescue quickly soured to a sullen wait. A few times she woke with a start, scolding herself for having nodded off. Despite the doctor's insistence that rest was actually good, Sam couldn't quite shake the feeling that she might not wake up if she went to sleep.

Her surprise was all the greater when she felt pressure on her head and shoulder, and then hard, cold claws pulling her away from Gabby. Tiredly she tried to resist but the unrelenting force got her on her back, immense weight still pinning her shoulders down. Soon enough the shape solidified into a hardsuit, an illuminated, unfamiliar but friendly face looking down at her, mouthing words that she could not quite hear.

"You have any broken bones or other injuries?" the man asked as he ran his omni over her, the external speaker on his helmet now amplifying his words.

Almost before Sam had shaken her head, the man unfastened the straps still holding her legs in place and unceremoniously lifted her up and over his shoulder.

She'd definitely have to come up with a few embellishments to this rescue if she ever got to tell the tale to entertain a date or a bunch of friends, she thought, her head bouncing against the back plating of the marine's armor.

* * *

Garrus was up almost as soon as Lidanya declared the break, his eyes downcast and speaking quietly to the Primarch at his side. Liara stood up and headed his way but even as she was rounding the tables, the turian got up and, with a mere glance at her, hung his head and strode out of the room. Liara was about to dash after him but was detained at the volus table. Admiral Bat was practically suffocating the flustered asari in gratitude when Grunt swept her away and back toward the humans with unexpected tactfulness.

Stopping the big krogan and grabbing him by the arms to get him to lean down, Liara rose on the tips of her toes and lightly bumped her forehead on Grunt's heavy, scaled expanse of a brow. After only the briefest hesitation, she was rewarded with a gentle push back before the now equally-flustered krogan nudged her back down and sent her back to her seat with a promise to come by the _Tiber_ again as soon as he could.

"He's not…like most krogan I've met," Hannah observed when Liara got back to the table, with the other admirals agreeing, Lakopoulos even flashing an exceedingly rare smile.

"No, not quite," Liara agreed, "but he is not far from what could be the norm." Noting the puzzled looks at the table, she continued, "Shepard and the rest of the _Normandy_ crew certainly had a large role in his upbringing—a long story, which I will have to recount for you later—but so did Urdnot Wrex. My limited observation combined with some discussions with the krogan females have lead me to believe that while the krogan are, on the whole, perhaps slightly more limbic than asari or humans, the extremes of warlikeness and violence that we have been grown to accept as biological traits of the krogan are in fact more the product of nurture—or, more precisely, lack thereof. With a better balance restored to the krogan society, we co—"

"Are we all ready to begin again? This should be short," asked Lidanya from her place at the front, her tone making the rhetorical nature of the question clear. Satisfied by the conversations dying down, she took a few steps to round back to the center of the room.

"There are two main topics I wish to touch upon, still. Admiral Bajic has promised us a report on the situation on Earth for a meeting tomorrow—I believe we can go back to our normal vidcomm format—and we could go over the other homeworlds and perhaps some of the more important colonies at that time as well, if you can get the information gathered up," she said, more as a statement than a question.

"With the exception of the _Normandy_ and three other missing vessels," she continued, "the rescue operations in the fleets have been completed. A significant number of wounded still need surgery and a recuperation location, but the most critical cases both from the fleets and the ground have largely been handled, and we can start organizing the medium-term logistics for care both for the military and civilians. ChiefMed has operative control and we will try to assist her in any way that we can."

As if on cue, one of the other asari rose and quickly went over the status of the two salvageable Citadel Wards and the plans for handling the over three million survivors located thus far.

"One of the very fortunate things," Lidanya said when she had regained the turn to speak, "is that the debris in space has now mostly stabilized. Nearly all is in orbit, and while there are some turian forces still guarding the lower orbit, it is unlikely that any significant meteor activity will be present in the future.

"Additionally, one of our bigger fears, conspicuously absent in all readings up to this point, has been defused by further analysis by the science teams: it seems that the vast majority of the eezo released by the destroyed ships was caught up in the gravity well that the Crucible created, and was dispersed in a fairly tight pattern from here all the way to the relay. While strictly speaking it is not optimal to have massive amounts of eezo floating around, not having it around a habitable planet is still a net win and yields us some time for cleanup organization.

"Primarch Victus, you had something you wished to bring up?"

"Thank you, Matriarch," the turian grumbled, "I believe we should arrange another information conference on the fleet situation, the relays, and the galaxy outside. Revealing the relay problems to all personnel right away _was_ the right choice despite my initial misgivings, and we should continue…"

Liara was already tuning out of the conversation, concentrating on improving her search VIs while idly wondering why she had automatically chosen to stay around for the second half of the meeting even though her part was already done.

* * *

"You'd have more friends if you didn't hog the good stuff, Lawson," someone whispered right into Miranda's ear. Her eyes shot open with a yelp as she lost her balance and started tilting back with her chair. A sly grin materialized in front of her even as a hand steadied her shoulder and another grabbed the wine bottle she had knocked off the table.

Still grinning, Kasumi hopped back and up to sit on the corner of the bed behind her and nudged Miranda with her good leg and waved her elaborately supported left arm. "Hold me a cup since you're staying around, missy! Can't pour myself."

Miranda stared at the pixie-like apparition on the bed for a moment, trying to hold onto her annoyance and her scowl but finding it an impossible task. Finally succumbing under the overwhelming force of that grin, she shook her head with a soft chuckle and leaned down to pull out another disposable cup. "Too badly wounded to pour wine, but sneaking into the best-guarded room in the entire fleet is no big deal?" she asked, proffering the cup toward Kasumi.

The thief nodded enthusiastically, pouring herself a generous cup under Miranda's disapproving eye and then swapping the bottle for her cup. "Got a peg leg, a hook arm, and sound like a horny elcor, and you didn't notice a thing the entire time! I figured you'd leave so I could just nap on the cot 'til the missus gets back home." Obviously very satisfied with herself, Kasumi sipped at the wine and patted the bedside for Miranda to prop her legs back up.

"How are you, anyway? I haven't really had time to check on you other than that you were doing OK," Miranda asked apologetically, slouching down to reach her legs back up on the railing next to Kasumi's.

"Oh, don't worry about it! I suppose it _was_ a good time to be thinking about retiring…I asked them to just do the best fittings they could, so that it wouldn't be too hard to get better cybernetics installed when we get out of this forsaken system," she said a little wistfully. "Although Liara said she might be able to get a good pair from some secret source and that the asari actually have some good techs on these ships…it's still never going to be as good though."

"Not good enough for you," Miranda agreed with a sympathetic nod.

The two sat in a comfortable silence for a minute or two, sipping wine and listening to the beeps from the machinery around them, Kasumi even finding enough of a rhythm to bop her head to.

"You know, you could actually queue up some music," the highly amused doctor observed from her chair, the knots in her neck finally loosening up a bit and the annoying twinges of her hair settling back down after its captivity all but ceased.

"Oh, no, this is your party," Kasumi quipped back. As she leaned down to rub at her knee, she looked up from under her brow and fixed Miranda's gaze. "This isn't what you normally do on your downtime, is it?"

"No," Miranda chuckled, "although it's not much better normally, not that I've had much downtime. We're only now starting to be mostly through with the critical cases so we don't actually need to be on call the entire time. Not until people from Earth start getting flown up anyway," she added with a frown. "I was just going to check on my patient and maybe talk with Liara a bit before turning in, but…well, I figured I might keep Shepard company for a while until she comes back."

"And have some of this excellent wine!" Kasumi exclaimed, toasting her cup.

"And some excellent wine," agreed Miranda with a smile.


	18. Chapter 17

_A/N: Thanks for all the input in reviews, PMs and BSN! Love all you for those :) I've also enabled anon reviews in case someone doesn't have an FFN or BSN account._

_There's a glossary entry about the mass relays affected by the pulse._

_And then onward to the story…_

* * *

_"…It is unknown whether Commander Shepard will be in attendance, but you don't want to miss the first images from the victorious Sol fleets! Tune in tomorrow at 15.25 standard time for the first live press conference from the military command in Earth space, and our award-winning analysis team's take on it!_

_"For now, we return to the effect of the mass relay outage on the economy and the reconstruction efforts. Professor Akor, you were saying that the disrupted relay services are distributed in a spiral manner counterclockwise from Earth space all the way to the Eagle Nebula, but is there something in this that we can use to our benefit—"_

_"Not directly, Letana, and as you know the Eagle Nebula relay as well as many others have subsequently have come back online, but it simply gives us a framework for routing our efforts while avoiding—"_

Feron flicked off the sound of the newscast, still both astonished and completely unsurprised that the news networks were up and running barely three days later as if nothing had happened. It had taken almost two days for the Sigurd's Cradle relay in Skepsis to reset itself after the energy pulse had caused it to become wildly unstable, and Feron's every moment since had been an insane bustle to try to chart the status of the network, and re-establish communications with the first and second tiers of agents. He had even had to track and dip down to the third tier for certain information routes, and handle some of the data flow himself for those agents who were still able to produce data but lacked the capability to process it.

He let his gaze wander around the cockpit, enjoying the still pristine surfaces and rich materials making up the luxurious space. They had decided to try to masquerade the mobile HQ by hitting a very precise spot of conspicuousness that simultaneously spoke of only the barest attempt to disguise the ship and carefully stayed away from overdoing the ostentatiousness to avoid the appearance that it was intentionally flashy to throw off suspicion. The ship should hold up to inspection, all of the real hardware hidden inside a concealed compartment that had the best possible scan obfuscators, but he'd prefer to not have to test their functionality. Nothing about being the Shadow Broker was easy, he reflected, even with the uncountable layers of encryption, indirection, obfuscation, and insulation that even just the final links between the command center and the space beyond had.

They had been gradually toning their operations to be less openly confrontational, going as far as to clandestinely probe at diplomacy with some of the other big players to reduce their own exposure. Even there was a risk of appearing too weak and spurring an enemy to make a concentrated push, or on the other hand making the difference from the way the previous Broker operated too obvious, thereby giving someone the idea that the original Broker might have been supplanted and trying what Liara had succeeded in. At best, it would still take closer to a decade to bring their personal threat level to a tolerable status while retaining the majority of the Broker's influence and assets.

Resting his eyes on the gorgeous picture that even Omega could make on the monitors from this far away, he tried to force his thoughts to more pleasant tracks while the refueling crews worked. This was the first break he had taken in days, and it had come with intense relief when he had, after hours and hours of searching, found a message from Liara in one of their agreed-upon low-encryption scenario information caches. With a little embarrassment he recalled the silly prayer he had recited to Arashu then, but even having gotten the information about the situation in Sol and the galaxy at large hadn't done much to quell his fears—especially with reported casualty numbers being what they were.

_"Alive. Limited access. Normal operation. Stay safe. Reply."_

Her access had to be _extremely_ limited, undoubtedly piggybacking on military QECs from Sol. Feron hoped that her inability to access her two private or the four other QEC's on the _Normandy_ was only temporary, and that he wouldn't have to rely on ten-word messages with possibly hours of delay to run the entire network. Writing a short reply to be encoded and eventually distributed in the ordering of a few fields in some memos in the requisition channels of the turian navy after a few unrelated hops, he had reflected on the two words spent for especially warning him…he knew that Liara _did _care about his safety, but she would not waste valuable bytes just to reiterate that.

With a start he had understood the scenario she had been concerned about, possibly extrapolating from not having heard from him until now. A few quick preparations later, satisfied that the network would hold for a few hours, Feron had made the plans for a circuitous jump to Thessia; even in the current chaos, the information that the Shadow Broker's base of operations could be assumed to have been in one of three clusters based on the duration of disruption in services was extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. He had carefully, with the help of a real twenty-option die, plotted a route with various stochastic transitions, backtracks, and false location reports that would hopefully throw off anyone trying to track him from Skepsis—and someone would try.

* * *

"We'll need to split between the five…or is it six…QEC's for tomorrow's press conference. The primaries will all be present, with the exception that Admiral Bajic will represent the humans and Urdnot Galem will appear in stead of Urdnot Grunt if he is unable to attend," Lidanya said with a nod toward the krogan. "I will send the ship assignments later. Unless anyone has questions, I believe we can adjourn for the day?"

No-one felt the need for clarification after the very thorough and not particularly short second part of the meeting, not even Liara who had gradually been getting more engaged in the discussion. The mechanics and logistics of the propaganda operation were quite interesting, and Shala'Raan had spoken at length about the organization that was required to get the 5 QEC transmitters synchronized over various systems to the news hubs on Illium, and then the return feed via the remaining QEC distributed over the fleet. Liara was rather impressed by some of the topology involved in ensuring a minimal delay in both directions—the promise of less than 50 seconds for a full round-trip seemed quite incredible. The admiral gave much of the credit to their fledgling co-operation with the geth, but not without a hint of pride for the work her people had done. Liara would have to remember to ask Feron to research the issue to streamline some of their processing.

Feron! She had almost let out a yelp when the VI had delivered the reconstructed message from the drell; not only was her friend well—an uncertain prospect even though she had instructed him to stay hidden rather than fight—but running the network by herself, even if she were to regain access to the _Normandy_, would have been all but impossible.

When she looked up from her omni, the room had almost emptied. Only Lidanya was still conferring with one of the other asari and Captain Kirrahe, and Shala'Raan lingered at the doorway. Hannah was on her way out with the other two humans, but stopped to lean down to Liara.

"Thank you, Liara, she'd…she _will_ be proud," the woman said with a smile. "I'll come over tomorrow, if that's alright? I finally have some time off. I'll bring some food—if I can find something decent—and we can watch the press conference."

"Oh! Of course! I would enjoy that," the asari replied with a sharp little nod, and watched Hannah take a few running steps to catch up with her superiors, Shala'Raan giving the humans a small, courteous bow as they passed her. Instead of turning to leave, the quarian looked over at Liara and quietly walked toward her.

"Greetings, Dr. T'Soni. I'm glad to meet you under a better sky—such as it is," the admiral said, standing politely to the side as Liara got up, and fell into step with her toward the shuttle bays.

"Liara, please," the asari said with a sidelong glance at the slightly shorter quarian at her side. "I am glad to see you are well, Admiral."

Shala'Raan cocked her head slightly, her eyes intent under the nearly inscrutable visor. "Liara, then. Auntie Raan may be a bit much, but please call me Shala. I wanted to thank you in person for saving Tali'Zorah. I won't even ask how you were able to contact me, I'm just grateful that you did."

Liara, smiling inwardly, lowered her gaze demurely toward the floor and let a slight embarrassed tremble sneak into her voice when she spoke a few steps later. "I— I only helped! I would have done anything…Tali is very dear to me. To all of us!"

"So I have gathered," Shala'Raan said, finally looking away. She clasped her hands behind her back, and the pair walked in silence for a while, passing through the confusing corridors of the enormous _Destiny Ascension_ relying on their omni navigation.

"I'm sorry we haven't been able to let you see her…I think we need to keep strict quarantine aboard for another week at least. Even I was hesitant to leave; I'll have to spend _hours_ in decon. She wanted a vidcomm setup, but the ship's communication systems are only barely functional, and haven't dared even do any repairs on the ships for fear of microcontamination from the tools, gases, dust…"

"I understand. It must be hard for her to be so isolated! Is she healing well?"

"She is, thanks to you. She'll be confined to bed for a week or two, though…which brings me to the other reason I wanted to speak to you. As you may know, we've started doing acclimation training aboard all the ships in preparation for Rannoch, and Tali had a bit of an idea for when the Commander wakes up…"

* * *

"OK, I'm now officially not sure which one is more bad-ass, Wrex or the Commander."

"Shut the hell up, Vega, you know you can't talk and lift at the same time," Jack instructed the marine half-heartedly, concentrating on reducing the weight of the enormous krogan so that the six stretcher bearers would have a slightly more tolerable job getting their burden up the half-collapsed staircase. "Besides, it's still the Commander."

"Yeah, I guess she did save the galaxy," Vega conceded, huffing with the effort of trying to keep the stretcher level as the one standing lowest on the stairs. "Plus I already got plans for my right tit anyway."

Wrex was, even without his armor and drained of fluids almost to the point of croaking, a huge lump of dead weight. If Jack was any judge, the old warrior still weighed easily over 500 kilos—probably four, maybe five times as much as Vega who was by no means a small man himself. The good thing about the krogan—in this particular case, not so much when you were fighting them—was that the rescue team that had found Wrex and plasma-cut him out from between the Reaper and the escalator had mostly been able to stabilize him with just medi-gel and IV fluids, the regenerative functions being able to start actually repairing rather than just trying to keep the damage from getting worse. They weren't in a critical hurry, but he still needed a couple band-aids to ensure there would be as little permanent damage as possible.

{Cortez, anything?} she asked on their ad-hoc team channel.

{Negative, ma'am, I'm trying to reach Grunt or any other Urdnot…We'll have to take him to orbit anyway, so we'll have time to figure it out on the way up. I'm not sure we've got any doctors specializing in krogan in the entire fleet to tell you the truth.}

{Are you fucking kidding me with the _ma'am_?} Jack demanded, to general amusement among the heavily strained rescue workers. {You're probably right, but keep trying…and see if you can get through to either Liara or Garrus, they might have a line to the boss doctor general. Keep the shuttle hot, we'll be up in…4–5 minutes? Out.}

There were groans all around at the optimistic time estimate, Vega and the woman next to him slipping on a step crumbling underneath them as if to underline the arduousness of the task.

"You all can shut right the fuck up with the whining, I've taught school children with more balls than you sorry empty sacks have combined. Just help grandpa up the fucking stairs and bitch about it later."

* * *

Liara had managed to enter the room humming to herself and even take off her tunic to throw it in the direction of her cot before noticing the two rather drunken women at the bedside. "Kas— Zoe! I am glad to see you…but how were you able to come to visit? I thought you—"

Miranda tut-tutted her. "She is _the best_ thief in the galaxy, Liara!" she exclaimed before being reduced to giggles making strange gestures with her arms and head that Liara thought might have supposed to look like someone creeping.

"It was a daring escape," Kasumi agreed solemnly. "Do you want some wine?"

"Which kind is it?" Liara asked suspiciously.

"Red!" the best thief in the galaxy declared.

"Oh…" Liara started, the mere thought turning her stomach. She could not fathom how humans could enjoy the drink; to her it tasted like rancid juice. And it burned! The white variety, at least, was merely bitter like _noq_ fruits, and she could actually drink a little if she ignored the feeling of heat in her throat.

"Don't worry, _darl_," Miranda interjected in an accent even stronger than usual, rummaging around the bedside table after carefully positioning her cup on the surface. "I'm sure I've got some fruit soda here for you!"

With an inward sigh of relief, Liara took the cup Miranda was holding up behind her and toward the asari while she continued poking through the various food pouches in the little cupboard. Liara pulled out the chair next to the duo, and sat down, self-consciously tugging at her new shirt.

"You know, doctor, you clean up quite well," Kasumi remarked from her perch between sips of wine, and nudged at Liara's knee.

This idiom Liara actually knew, and she bowed graciously. "Thank you. I am not certain whence these clothes came, but they fit my shape quite well, and I enjoy the texture. I believe I shall find some more like these."

"You should. They do certainly…fit," Kasumi agreed with a little cough. "What do you mean you don't know where they came from?"

"I…forget I mentioned it," Liara deflected, momentarily concentrating on keeping her cup under the somewhat unsteady stream of soda Miranda was pouring from a little foil. "I take it that _your_ healing is progressing well if you made it from the Citadel to here undetected!"

"It is," the thief said, her face turning more serious, "but it doesn't look like I'll be doing any serious work for years…if ever."

"Oh, Kasumi…" Liara blurted, leaning forward to give the woman's hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"It's not so bad, I _was_ supposed to retire, after all!" Kasumi exclaimed, her expression brightening a little. "I'll find something else to use my _fantastic_ abilities for…"

A simultaneous chime in both her and Miranda's omni comms interrupted the train of thought Kasumi's reply had put Liara on. She jumped up with a wide smile as soon as she had scanned the first few lines, looking around for a place to set her cup before settling on just putting it on her chair.

"The _Normandy_!" she yelped at Kasumi. "They found it! The crew is on the _Ob_, it'll be here in a few hours!"

"Oh no, radiation burns," Miranda groaned, "it's only six or seven hours before I'm needed…"

"I must have both of you in condition to help when they arrive," Liara declared. "There are some sleep inducers in the top drawer in my desk. Go to sleep now—Kasumi, you are welcome to share the cot with me, it should be sufficiently long for you to rest comfortably. I shall find some detox gels in the meanwhile."


	19. Chapter 18

_A/N: I **swear** I did not see that line coming. She just…said it._

_A thank-you to my kind second pair of eyes for sanity-checking some dialogue._

* * *

The chime in her ears blinked Kasumi straight into wakefulness, her body already encouraged to think it was morning by the little optical enhancements that started a gradually intensifying bright light stimulation of her optic nerves an hour to twenty minutes before her alarm was set to go off, depending on the length of the rest and the actual lighting situation. Her cybernetic eyes still adjusted slightly to the artificial light in the room as she opened her eyelids, giving a pleasant hue of blue to the ends of the crest fringes that were nearly poking in her face.

Sitting up to stretch and rub at the still-healing connections in her arm and leg, she reached forward and grabbed a few of the detox/stim pouches off the table. Selecting two mocha-flavored ones, she tossed the fruit punch variety back and smiled at the thoughtful asari who had undoubtedly had to spend some time hunting down not one but two foils of the universal favorite.

Greedily slurping the watery gel, she turned back toward Liara and nudged the archeologist's knee to rouse her from her probably inadequate rest. Had Kasumi not seen her share of sleeping asari, she might have been concerned seeing the woman's awkward-looking posture, especially with her legs dangling off the bed. Not for the first time Kasumi wished that the human body didn't have such a restrictive structure…all the places she could have gone if she could contort herself like that!

Liara woke up with a few quick, sharp breaths as Kasumi crawled over her to stretch her back standing up, almost as if she was hyperventilating. The room was pristine again, bottles and cups nowhere to be seen and the chairs and bed back in their neat order. Miranda had disappeared some time after Kasumi had snuggled down, probably to her own quarters.

"According to this estimate, they shall arrive slightly late from their schedule" the asari said punctuated with taps from her omni. "You have time for a shower, if you would like one?"

"No, thanks…the armor keeps me clean enough. I _would_, however, not mind a little time on a proper computer instead of my woefully inadequate omni…" Kasumi said dramatically, making her best appealing face at Liara.

The asari's expression had a curiously serious flicker before it softened into her usual smile. "I propose a wager: I shall take the opportunity to freshen myself up, and you have that time to attempt to log into my system. If you succeed, or I judge you to have made it sufficiently close, I shall give you direct _and_ remote access."

"Ooh…you got a deal, miss!" Kasumi exclaimed, grinning nearly ear to ear as she jumped on the strange saddle that served as Liara's chair, barely noting the rustle behind her from Liara checking on Shepard before stepping into the little bathroom compartment.

* * *

"_Chikuso—o…_"

Liara smirked at the swearing thief, but took her time making her way back to the desk. She peeked at Shepard again, brushing her hand over the shape of her toes underneath the blanket satisfied that nothing untoward had occurred in the almost ten minutes she'd given herself to wash up. She still hadn't quite gotten used to the physical showers the humans liked; asari tended to either use biotics, ultrasonics, or occasionally indulge in actual longer baths. Still, she'd found that the contraptions worked well enough, and had even managed to develop a little vice of letting the stream fall on the back of her calf or side of her thigh and slowly inching the temperature hotter and hotter. She felt heat rise on her cheeks and crest, recalling Shepard catching her enjoying the exquisite feeling. She squeezed a covered ankle longingly, and turned toward the cloud of epithets behind her.

Standing over Kasumi's shoulder, arms lightly crossed, Liara found herself rather impressed. The woman was nowhere near actually getting in, but she had made much more progress than Liara had expected…had _hoped_ for; she had gotten all the way past the standard first- and second-tier protections that were more for show than to actually provide any protection, and was well into getting around the first active countermeasures. As Liara observed both in person and from inside the system via her omni, she saw a few very creative attempts and just the kind of methodology that might eventually get the intruder into the inner layers of protection—maybe even beyond.

"Good lord, Liara!" Kasumi exclaimed as she noticed the presence behind her, interrupting the asari's contemplation. "How in…How— What the hell do you actually _have_ here?"

"I thought you were joking about the wager," she continued, her frustrated expression softening into a smile in response to Liara's own, "but you've got some _serious_ stuff going on here. I'm not even sure how this hardware supports it! I—"

"I shall let you in now," Liara interjected, tapping on her omni, "before your equipment is damaged."

"You got this from that ship you stole from the Broker, didn't you!"

"I did, yes," Liara conceded gravely.

"Ooh…I'd give an arm and a leg to get my hands on the source for this. …_Unf_, figure of speech," Kasumi added self-consciously, shifting her injured arm closer to herself. "Is there something I could bribe you with to show me?"

"Perhaps. There is a favor I wanted to ask of you."

* * *

"Blue!"

Jack was striding toward her from the corridor on Liara's right when she turned toward the voice, James and Steve close in tow. The marine looked a little worse for the wear, but at least he seemed to have some of the earlier confidence back in his walk.

"Jack, James, Steve!" the asari called back with a smile. "I was not certain you would be able to make it here, but I am glad that you did. Were you able to…find them?"

"Yeah, and then some!" James shouted, earning himself a murderous look from Jack.

"Yeah," Jack said as the trio fell in step with Liara toward the sign marking the _Ob_'s isolation ward at the end of the hallway. "Everybody on the ground's accounted for…turns out Bashu had just gone home to look for his parents and didn't tell anyone, the little bastard. Sundstrom and Larionov are dead."

"I am sorry to hear that, Jack," Liara said quietly. Still slightly unsure around the volatile woman, she hesitated for a moment before putting her arm around Jack's shoulder, but to her relief felt the biotic lean into the embrace for a few steps before pulling away at the entryway to the ward.

"We also found Wrex!" James broke in as they stepped into the decontamination, unable to contain himself any longer and causing Liara to spin around to look up at him. "Old bastard's tough."

Upon a small cough from Steve, James decided to amend his statement, "Well, OK, we didn't really _find_ him. Someone else did, and they cut him down, but we helped drag him aboveground and flew him over to…the…one of them asari ships."

"That is wonderful news, James," Liara said beaming at the big man. "I hope you informed Urdnot Grunt?"

"We did, Dr. T'Soni," Steve supplied. "He got there just as we lifted off to get over here."

"For fuck's sake, _both_ of you? I swear, I'm going to—"

Jack's plans for the exceedingly polite soldiers were interrupted as the door opened, revealing Miranda waiting for them on the other side. The two exchanged a rather icy look, with Jack drawing herself toward the wall to stay away from Miranda.

"We've got 21 survivors. They are mostly going to pull through," Miranda said by way of greeting. "The radiation damage is quite extensive. It'll take some time to heal it all up and they're going to have to get regular check-ups pretty much the rest of their lives, but I don't _think_ anyone's going to die because of it…

"It's actually the other trauma that's causing the problems. Moreau, obviously, isn't really suited for the extremely high G-forces that occurred in the deceleration. I'm not sure we've found a single intact bone in his body. Dr. Chakwas—who's awake and rather spry, by the way, if you want to talk to her—did the best she could, but there's a lot of internal damage. You may want to go see him first. Daniels, Heise, Natanda, and Alitez also have significant injuries, and their prognoses are uncertain."

* * *

Privately, Kasumi had to admit that she probably wasn't going to be the best thief in the galaxy anymore, but she was still a damn good one. Sneaking onto the _Normandy_ was child's play after Liara had gotten 'Zoe Garondt' authorized to enter the carrier _Hawking_, where the damaged frigate had been towed after it was verified to be clear of radiation, eezo, and any other immediate hazards. The ship wasn't even really guarded, just quarantined, but the Alliance would be sure to send over an army of technicians to comb over the ship before anyone else would be allowed on it.

She noted with satisfaction that Shepard had gotten at least three of the previously vulnerable spots secured; she'd have to come up with a new route into the ship to annoy the commander—next time, since for now the main airlock hatch was wide open, the hole only covered by a double barrier generator. A few minutes of observation and her trusty cloak let her slip inside without trouble. As she emerged into the foyer between the cockpit and the command arrays, she was assaulted by an unimaginable stench. Gagging and cringing, she pulled up her rebreather and let it clamp onto her face, unnecessarily waiting a few seconds before inhaling again. Only the sensation of the fresh air in her lungs finally unwound the physical defensive crouch she found herself in.

She set a proximity alarm in the entrance before moving on. Liara's instructions had been very precise and it was uncertain how long it would be before the techs got there, but Kasumi couldn't help her curiosity and made her way through the ship slowly. The blast shields were closed but the S&R lights and her vision enhancements afforded her a nearly daylight view. The cockpit was mostly intact; many of the nonintegrated consoles were strewn around the cabin and there were a few splotches of dried blood around but, just as the exterior, the interior did not show evidence of significant damage.

The CIC was a grim sight. The rescue crews had only removed the survivors and secured all the dead from the frigate around the walkway surrounding the galaxy map. Kasumi's mind shot back at the piles of corpses on the Citadel; as respectfully as these bodies surely had been treated in comparison, they were still just as dead. She ran past the silent rows toward the auxiliary stairs that were still in the same place they had been before the Alliance remodeling, trying not to imagine features of people she had known on the vague, covered shapes.

As she crouched to leave another alarm at the hatch leading down, she noted the clear signs of a plastic seal and possible signs of a weld on and around the hatch itself. The little information that Liara had managed to find said that the ship had been located by a massive release of eezo, leaving Kasumi to guess that the crew had sealed everything below the CIC to keep themselves from contamination. She cautiously stepped down the stairs, emerging from a maintenance door just behind one of the crew washrooms.

The mess hall was clear of bodies and damage, but blood, waste, and medical supplies indicated it had been used for care earlier. Averting her gaze, she skirted next to the hull to the door of the former XO's office to find it sealed shut except for a section in the middle that had been blasted through—with a plasma cutter or something similar as far as she could tell. She slipped between the remnants of the door into what turned out to be the worst-affected part of the ship she'd seen so far. The room was littered with inadequately secured, smashed computer equipment, data pads, notepads, and various tools that she didn't recognize. Even the small sleeping alcove was in ruins, the bed having broken through its fastenings and shattering the privacy screens separating the small section from the main room.

The first item on Liara's list was easy enough to find; Kasumi nearly tripped on the small rectangular box with 'glyph 4' written on one side in neat script. Detaching it and stowing it in her backpack, she set toward the main row of processing clusters on the right-hand wall. Carefully noting the locations of the movable units in the event she would have to displace one, or did so inadvertently, she brought out her omni attachments kit and set to opening the two that matched the serial numbers the asari had written down for her.

Kasumi liberated the two heavy boxes from their bays inside the communications computing clusters with little difficulty. They were clearly made to be detachable, and removing the various connections would have been straightforward even without the instructions she'd gotten. The bays looked exactly like the other ones, as did the boxes resemble a normal pluggable cluster, further piquing the thief's curiosity. Liara wasn't concerned about any of the other equipment, and Kasumi herself was quite certain that no-one would be able to get into the systems or dare remove any of the asari's equipment from _Commander Shepard's_ ship without authorization since it wasn't impounded, just salvaged…unless it was something quite extraordinary, and useful enough to confiscate in their current circumstances.

Resolving to press Liara for some more information, Kasumi tried to pack the heavy boxes securely alongside the smaller brick from earlier. Weighing the bag, she flicked on the small field generators that helped take some of the weight off her, and swung the now much lighter carrier through the gap in the door before stepping back out into the hallway herself. Calmly noting the brief pulse from her first proximity alarm from outside the ship, she lifted the back's straps around her shoulders and locked them into place in her armor.

She could just cloak and wait up in the combat control cluster until the airlock was clear, but decided to take the lower route as much out of nosiness as to avoid possible direct contact with the tech crews. Finding a way turned out to be easy, first down through another unsealed staircase next to the garbage disposal plant and then through a gruesomely blood-splattered storage room. She hadn't seen much evidence of major physical trauma around the ship but here a sad tale was laid out by the spray of dried blood concentrated on the wall around the top of a combat seat, and a large, now-formless pile of electronic equipment lying at the end of red skid marks near the outboard wall with small slices of white plastic—or bone—visible amidst a crust of dark crimson brown.

Trying not to think too hard about the evidence laid out before her, Kasumi slunk out via the doorway—this one actually pried open rather than molten through. The hallway running over the vehicle bay seemed much as it had been before but both doorways had been blasted open, and the windowing was destroyed. She risked a quick glance toward the engine room, not quite certain what she'd see. Reality was somewhat underwhelming, only beautiful spiraling streaks on the walls where the eezo clouds had escaped in a vortex toward the breach in the hull that she spied through the shattered windows.

Grabbing her descender from an armor compartment, she set the grappler on the window frame and hopped through into a quick, controlled drop onto the shuttle bay floor a few meters below. Recalling and stowing the grappler, she made her way toward the back just as her alarm in the airlock sent its signal before crumbling into dust. With a professional eye, she took note of the lines drawn around the breach in the back wall, slightly different in each layer of the hull presumably to account for movement that the space between might cause; it seemed that a little more planning had gone to the fluid dynamics involved in the eezo release than she'd thought from hearing the report.

The hole was big enough for her to fit through if a little awkward due to the multiple disconnected layers of material. After peeking through with an optical extension to ensure there was nothing immediately threatening her outside, she dropped the backpack and drew out the strong cord she'd fitted into it just for these circumstances. With her cloak activated and suddenly very conscious of the new limitations her limbs set her, she wriggled out through the breach. After another check of her surroundings, she set activated her small noise dampener and pulled the backpack through after her. Re-stowing the cord and latching the bag back onto its fastenings, she dashed back out of the main hangar and toward the med bay where M. Garondt could re-emerge without attracting attention.


	20. Chapter 19

"Doctor Chakwas!" Miranda cried indignantly seeing the woman standing next to the monitors attached to Joker. "You need to go back to bed, _right now_."

Liara let out a squeak, shocked as she was by the doctor's appearance. She was unsure if she would even have recognized the woman; she had lost all her hair—including the tufts that humans had over their eyes—and her skin, where it was not covered in blackened burns or colored a deep, bruised purple, was pallid and covered in bumps and craters where it had been tight and smooth the last time Liara had seen her. The woman had an arm in a sling and some type of a light cast around her hips and left thigh, but despite this, all her muscles seemed to be twitching or trembling. "Karin…"

"I—" Chakwas started, only to be immediately cut off by Miranda.

"No. Right now. This is not an argument, I will sedate you if you won't stay there," the younger woman said sternly. "Lieutenant Vega? Please escort Dr. Chakwas to her room. Second one to the right."

"Ma'am," James said curtly and walked over to Karin, offering his arm for support. Galled at having her own tactics used against her but grateful for the aid, the doctor steadied herself on the big marine, and obediently shuffled toward the door. She was nearly next to Liara when she suddenly seemed to first notice the asari, and smiled broadly at her.

"Oh, it's good to see you, Liara! Is—"

"Go on, Karin, you must lie down. I will come to see you shortly. Is that alright?" Liara asked, cupping the woman's cheek. "James, can you give Dr. Chakwas a pad with access to our roster?"

James nodded and kindly pulled the woman toward the door, the pair vanishing through it moments later.

"It's…like I said," Miranda said noting their worried looks, "it'll take a few weeks for the damage to regenerate, but the specialists expect it to. The neurological effects should be the easiest to reverse…as far as we can tell, it's as much from stress, lack of nutrition and inadequate rest as actual damage."

Joker looked even worse, every limb held both in stasis as well as in a physical restraint, an intravenous medi-gel and antibiotic circulator poking out from each body part separated by a joint.

"The bones are healing up well enough with the overload of medi-gel and regenerative catalysts, but that all is taxing the rest of his system, already working well below capacity with at least one kidney and lung out—possibly badly enough that we need to consider actually transplanting rather than just regrowing. On the other hand, delaying healing the bones would relapse him into shock. He has bad brain swelling that isn't going down as well as we were hoping, and…"

* * *

Liara was quiet as she stepped into Karin's room. Joker's situation was quite dire, and even if he were to pull through, he'd probably have a good half a year of recovery ahead of him…and might still have some long-term damage. She would have to pull some strings to see if—

"Dr. T'Soni!" Traynor called from the bed on Liara's left, her accent unmistakeable. Liara turned about and took the few steps over to the woman, admonishing herself for the little pang of jealousy that the specialist had done nothing to deserve after realizing that Shepard was _hers_.

"I'm glad to see you're okay! Are—" the small woman yelped before being overcome by a fit of coughing. Liara helped her up to a sit and reached for a glass from the nearby table. While Traynor gulped the water and tried to settle her breathing, Liara reached for a nearby datapad and called up their channel and selected the roster. Traynor looked only marginally better than Karin, but she seemed to lack the trembling the older woman was suffering from.

"I promised to see Dr. Chakwas right away," Liara apologized, "but here is the list of our friends, I am sure you are concerned. If you like, you may also join the channel there, I believe most of us are at least monitoring it."

Traynor nodded appreciatively, allowing Liara to take her leave and walk over to Karin's bed in the next bay. James was helping steady the woman's hand as she looked over a datapad. Rounding the marine, Liara pulled over a chair to sit on, and carefully replaced James' grip with her own.

"I'll go see some of the other guys…where did—"

"Steve remained with Joker, I believe," Liara supplied, looking up at James. "Miranda is taking Jack over to see Gabby before she is taken to surgery."

"Oh…uh, I better go after Jack. …To make sure there's no trouble."

"That sounds like a good idea, James," Liara said, smiling conspiratorially at Karin as the man jogged out of the room, stopping only to greet Traynor briefly.

Liara took the opportunity to look the doctor over closer while she was going through the status roster they had been keeping. Close up, she looked even worse, even the clearer skin covered in what she assumed were small burst blood vessels, welts and sores. The burns seemed to be less severe than she had thought, despite looking very nasty. It was as if they were very intense but very shallow, so that only the upper layer of the skin was affected. It was also limited on one side of her body, allowing the woman to rest relatively comfortably. The trembling was odd, almost hypnotic. Liara felt and saw the individual muscles of the forearm under her hand twitch in various different directions, as if the individual cords of muscle were all operating independently.

To Liara's relief, the look in the steely eyes that sought out hers was still the same as it always had been. She had been briefly afraid that Karin had suffered mental effects, but judging from the movement of the eyes and the squint, it was likely that only the woman's eyesight and hearing had been affected.

"The girl made it, I see," Karin said, her tone betraying the sentiment behind the curt words. "She did always insist she wasn't _trying_ to get herself killed, against all evidence."

Liara surprised herself by bursting into a quiet giggle, and hugged the doctor gingerly.

"Who would've thought going hand to hand with Reapers was actually the safer option," Karin said quietly after Liara let her go. "Looks like you did much better than us."

"What happened, Karin? We were able to mostly piece together a sequence of events and define a sector to start looking for you, but…"

The doctor recounted the events inasmuch she herself knew. Her description of EDI's actions confirmed the account that Bajic had shared about trying to avoid being affected by the energy pulse. She seemed quite pleased when Liara mentioned that Grunt had indeed made it through the Presidium—and that there was a video the doctor _had_ to see—but was unable to give much detail about the actual events surrounding the Crucible's firing. All of the flight officers and engineers who might have known better were either dead or, in the case of Joker, Heise, and Gabby, not in a condition to be interviewed. A soft snore from the other end of the room told Liara that Traynor, too, was currently unavailable.

Liara guiltily noticed the woman's trembling increasing and her voice wandering. "Miranda is right, Karin, you should rest. I am sorry, I was selfishly keeping you up. We shall have plenty of time to speak later; there are many things we should appraise you of. It may be possible that the Alliance has planned a debriefing for you themselves, of course, but I would prefer to tell you myself, if you can suffer my company… Now, however, sleep for you."

Ignoring Karin's half-hearted protestations, Liara toggled the bed to descend to a lower incline—it wasn't allowed to go all the way horizontal to help fend off breathing problems—and propped up her pillows. She surrendered the controller to allow the doctor to fine-tune the supporting molding around herself.

"James set this datapad able to access our communication channel in addition to the roster," Liara said softly, "so that when you wake next, you can contact us directly. I will return to see you tomorrow…Miranda assured me that you should be feeling much better then."

"Can you…stay a while?" Karin mumbled, her eyes closed, her breathing evening out.

"Of course."

* * *

Kaidan opened his mouth to call out to Liara when he saw her walk through the ward door with Vega close behind, but thought better of it when he saw the short woman's shape emerge behind the two at a half-run and slowing down to walk next to the asari. _Jack._

He understood why Shepard had turned down his offer to rejoin the crew, but even she had seemed more receptive in the brief moments they had to speak before the final assault. Liara seemed to have all but forgiven him, and even Garrus had been conciliatory. Jack, though… She didn't even know him—she hadn't even known _Shepard_ when they had still been friends—but she was, if anything, even angrier at him than Shepard herself. The few cautious forays he had made had been very close to ending up in a physical fight, and he had resigned to having to make up with Shepard before even attempting to approach the biotic again.

He drew back into the hallway leading to the crew decks where he had once again cleaned himself up and gotten some sleep after the uneventful but stressful first few hours of treatment when they had finally gotten the survivors onto the hospital ship.

Stepping into an alcove, Kaidan watched the three make their way past the opening of the corridor and turn in the opposite direction toward the hangar before he resumed his walk toward the ward. Entering through the decontamination room, he noted the quiet when he arrived in the hub corridor of the ward and stepped over to the HI on the wall. He was relieved to see that the doctors had managed to keep everyone alive since they had lost Bao on the _Leyte_, and was feeling cautiously hopeful that perhaps they were past the critical stages and that it would be all recovery from here on out. Noting that all of the few people he really knew were indicated to be unavailable — asleep, unconscious, or in surgery — he trudged over to the doctor he saw emerging from Joker's room.

* * *

"T'Soni!" Aria called out, jumping up from a row of seats lining the wall of windows overlooking the _Ob_'s shuttle bay, with a small, six-person retinue rising with their mistress but keeping a respectful distance back as the asari strode up to Liara.

"Aria?" Liara responded suspiciously, taking note of the woman's slight limp and a hint of a support underneath her unusually loose outfit. "What are you doing on a _human_ ship? Could you not have gone to an asari— Oh. I see."

"Exactly," the pirate queen conceded, well aware that despite her assistance in the war effort, it would probably be best to avoid being surrounded by too many asari authorities. "These idiots didn't let me out before this field trip to wherever the hell it was we went and now that we've returned, I'm _still_ stuck on this bucket waiting for a shuttle.

"You, on the other hand, don't look like you intend to languish in line…and I'm _certain_ there's space for my fabulous behind in your transport. I'm going to the Citadel."

"What about your…friends?" Liara asked, gesturing toward one the ugliest collections of mercenaries she'd ever seen casually watching over their employer. The brief look of puzzlement on Aria's face was answer enough. "I see. …Yes, you are welcome to join us."

Without a word of thanks, Aria turned her eyes to look past Liara and seemed to take note of the younger asari's companions for the first time. She gave an appraising look at James and, to Liara's surprise, actually addressed the woman behind her. "Jack."

"Bitch."

Genuinely scared about the possibility of these two getting into a fight, both with immense potential far surpassing her meager powers, Liara swung around intending to try to calm the human biotic down only to find her standing in a relaxed slouch with a small smirk on her face, no trace of biotics flaring up. "You…know eachother?"

"Shepard," Jack said by way of explanation.

"Let's not forget all those times I had to get personally involved to calm one of your rampages down before that. Cunt," Aria added amicably, leaving Jack to shrug her shoulders in a noncommittal manner.

Steve's call rescued Liara from trying to come up with polite topics of conversation, the notification closely followed by the bay door hissing open to permit their group into the airlock where the pilot had set the shuttle down. Aria waved away her guards, barking at one to call up her entourage in the Citadel. James hopped on board the small craft quite gracefully for a man of his size and, leaning down from a railing above the hatch frame, offered his arm to pull up first Liara and then Aria. As Liara took the few steps toward Steve in the cockpit, a thunk and a coughing gasp behind her suggested the marine had probably tried to help Jack up too.

"We shall make an unplanned stop at the Citadel— Tayseri," Liara echoed the call from the back, "and then the _Tiber_. I took the liberty to arrange accommodations for you three on board, and there should be adequate space for the shuttle. I know you would be loath to part with it," she added with a smile at Steve.

"Sounds like a plan, do— _Liara_," the man amended noting the kind squint of disapproval the asari made. "Go strap yourself in. Anybody missing still?"

"Miranda is staying to do what she can with the burns and skin damage. She said she would make her own way back. Take off whenever you are ready, Steve," Liara replied over her shoulder as she made her way to the free seat facing Aria.

Unlike the Kodiak they had been using on the _Normandy_, this shuttle had been constructed for civilian purposes and actually had viewports. Liara found herself staring the view outside, first at the mundane sights of the environmental barrier vanishing from around the craft, the shuttle bay's walls flicking past in a blur until they emerged into the space beyond.

Despite the continuous best efforts of the fleets, the space around Earth—an enormous sphere reaching almost three times the distance that Moon, Earth's only satellite, orbited the planet—was still littered with debris in addition to the uncountable numbers of still functional ships. The remains of the Citadel formed a small sphere of their own within the destruction; as Liara understood it, there had been plans to try to extricate the still-functional wards further away from the planet, but they had been foiled by the difficulty of getting enough thrust to move the enormous structures without causing risk of further damaging them or the residents and refugees inside. Each of the larger sections had a frigate or cruiser attached to them to ensure that any unexpected velocity or vector changes could be responded to quickly.

As they approached the largest fragment, the remnants of the Tayseri ward, the star's light striking Earth drew Liara's eyes to the planet. She had seen pictures and projections, of course, but had never managed to catch it on the light side, their original approach having been in the enclosed Kodiak and departure during nighttime on that side. Great swaths of the sphere were covered in black and various shades of grey—clouds of smoke, Liara guessed—but there were some parts clearly less affected, clean white clouds letting through shades of blue, green, and yellow that closely matched the colors she had expected; the palette was slightly darker than Thessia's, the blues and greens deeper and more uniform than the vibrancy of her planet's surface. The seas, in particular, were almost a solid blue where one could see variance from an almost pastel minty green to azure, and all the way to nearly purple in the oceans of her home. The geology she had memorized as part of her studies suggested that Thessia's seas were uncommonly shallow, letting the minerals and various other elements of refraction conspire to produce the effects that were stunning even from space where most of the other species had to settle for seeing differences only on the ground.

"Not as bad a place to be stuck in as I feared," Aria observed peering out right next to Liara, thoroughly startling the archeologist who hadn't noticed her move. "All the same, I think I'm going to stay up in the Ward. Or maybe go see what that other planet looks like…Mors, Nors, or whatever it was."

"Mars," Liara said, recomposing herself. "It was named after a god-entity of war or hunting, perhaps, from a few generations ago. The other planets follow the motif. I do not believe that religion is widely held anymore, however."

Aria fixed her with a curious gaze, as intent as it ever had been, but Liara thought she saw a hint of softness there for the first time. "Why didn't you tell me Aethyta was— That you were related to her? I would probably have been a little more helpful back then."

"She is my father," Liara said sternly, "You can say it, I am not ashamed of it—"

"I didn't mean it like— I myself have…" Aria quickly amended with a slight stammer, drawing back in her seat and offering her palms conciliatorily. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was not aware of it at the time," Liara said simply, her tone softer as she turned toward Aria. "Am I to infer that you know her?"

"Ah…yes," Aria admitted. "Knew her long before you were born. Long before she even got together with your mother, in fact. She kind of fell off my radar around when Benezia swept her away."

"Anyway," the she continued almost at a whisper after a long pause, "I wanted to say that it still buys some favor from me, if you ever do need anything. In addition to, you know, general goodwill you've earned for…this," she finished, gesturing out of the window.

She sat back silently then, rested her head on the wall behind her, eyes closed and throat exposed to underline the trust she afforded the young doctor and, by extension, her companions.

Liara watched the queen of Omega for a few moments, and then turned her attention back on the globe growing outside the window, pulling up a projection in her omni to try to recognize cities, coasts, rivers, and nations in the blue-green marble.


	21. Chapter 20

_A/N: Chapter 20! Almost 65,000 words! I wouldn't have thought it possible a year ago; yet, there's plenty to come still…_

_It's great to know that others are enjoying the story, too, so thanks to all you guys — and a special thanks to those who have taken the time to beta-read excerpts, leave reviews, send PMs, and/or comment on BSN. Both the support and the critique are always very helpful :)_

* * *

Kasumi was practically vibrating with excitement. She had stridden back over to the Love Nest after biding enough time on the _Hawking_ to avoid raising suspicion, and was currently contemplating the three rectangular bricks of hardware in front of her, _willing_ them to reveal their secrets. She had already tried plugging the one labeled 'glyph 4' in, but the limited system Liara had created within her own systems was restricted to predefined hardware and external access. A few feeble attempts later Kasumi had resigned to having to wait for the asari; the other two would be, if anything, even more protected, and there was nothing that seemed of use in the databases or the offline versions of the various extranet information sources that the fleets hosted. She _did_ find a few very funny cartoons and vid shows that various soldiers had created about the battle — many featuring Shepard and Liara, some even Garrus or other members of their team — and spent a good while looking them over while fastidiously staying away from the more serious content, journals, and memorials that most of the recent activity in the fleet's social cluster consisted of.

"I see you were successful! This is wonderful news," Liara said from the door when Kasumi turned toward her upon hearing the entryway slide open.

"I believe I shall have to postpone attempting to assemble them until later, however," the asari continued as she came up to the cot to unfasten her tunic. "Admiral Shepard promised to come visit in only a few hours, and I should get ready…"

"I'm glad the news from the _Normandy_ wasn't all bad," Kasumi said, swinging around in the saddle chair she had come to quite like. "I'd like to come with you tomorrow, if you're going back?"

"Of course!" Liara exclaimed after laboriously extracting her crest from the collar of her undershirt before setting to rummaging in a small bag she had brought with her. "And since you are about to ask, yes, I believe you have earned the right to assist me in setting this equipment up later."

"Ha!" the thief cried triumphantly. "It's something awesome, isn't it?"

"It is. This reminds me…I have made arrangements for the suite three doors down to be made available for use by you and Jack unless there is a pressing need to admit more patients. You may come and go as you please, of course, but I believe it might feel crowded if we were to attempt to share the cot for several nights."

"That sounds fine, Li," Kasumi nodded, "I wont hold it against you that you don't like me and want to get rid of me."

"What? That's not true! …Oh, I see. Very amusing, Kasumi."

The thief was already grinning wide, but went ear to ear when Liara pulled out what looked unmistakably like gym clothes out of the little bag. "Not enough running for your life in the last days, _doctor_?"

"I…" Liara started, trying to figure out which way the bright orange gym shirt was supposed to go on, "Steve said there is a physical therapy room here and they had these available at the requisition office. I feel silly for not thinking of it myself. I quite took to the daily exercise on _Normandy_."

"I'm sure you did," Kasumi said, still grinning brightly.

"I did, I— Oh…hush." Liara admonished her kindly, violet creeping to her cheeks. "I was considering asking you to accompany me, but you insist on making fun of me, perhaps I shall do it alone!"

Trying to stifle a chortle, Kasumi made an earnest apology, and then decided to try a hunch. "I would be honored to accompany you, but I'm afraid I can't exercise with these injuries…"

Liara wandered toward the bed on the other side of the room, trying to maneuver her head through the correct hole in the sleeveless shirt without falling down. She leaned over Shepard to cup the woman's cheek, and then pulled up the little swiveled datapad before turning back toward Kasumi.

"That is not true, Kasumi. In fact, your doctor expressly ordered you to…" Liara started, trailing off as she noticed the sly look on the woman's face. "_Yes_, I know all kinds of things. I make it my business to."

"Still, it's pretty impressive that you can see the files…they weren't even from an Alliance doctor."

"I am an archeologist, Kasumi. I dig things up."

* * *

Bailey found himself strangely comforted by the sight of Aria T'Loak shouting at some poor underling for not having secured direct passage into the Ward proper for her; the ancient biotic was powerful and ruthless, but there was nothing that a sufficient number of bullets couldn't do. There was a definite charisma to her that was the _real_ foundation of her sovereignty. He'd almost gotten used to having her around ignoring his every order; plus the woman ran a tight ship. There had been a marked reduction in unorganized crime – the kind that people noticed — since she'd gotten on board. He buzzed the entry guard to let the asari in and point her in his direction. It was a fifty-fifty shot that she'd just ignore him and go about her business, but he figured he might have established some kind of rapport and wasn't above leaning on it.

Life in Tayseri had mostly fallen right back into old patterns, even for him, sitting behind Keethem's old desk instead of a jail cell as he was. He should have known that rather than rightfully hold him responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands or more in the battle for the Citadel, the idiots with their big wigs would try to pin medals on him. They never got _anything_ right.

Still, reflecting on the matter while eyeing the approaching pirate queen, the commander was starting to come to terms with his freedom. As much as he might have deserved to be court-martialed, this way was certainly much easier for Margit and the kids. He'd had to pull quite a few strings to get permission to have them extracted from the cabin in the Rockies that Joan — bless him for listening to his father once — had dragged his sister and mother to. Life on Tayseri wasn't going to be exactly glamorous when they got here, but by Bailey's reckoning it was going to get ugly planetside and he certainly didn't want to risk them getting hurt now that the worst was over.

"Bailey."

Aria didn't need much convincing about the benefits of a mutual understanding between her organization and the severely understaffed C-Sec; Bailey just hoped that the asari didn't consider herself doing him a favor…he'd never be done repaying it. As it was, though, she seemed to treat him almost as an equal…rudely, yes, but with some degree of respect mixed in. She didn't stay around for a chat after their business was concluded but, on the upside, he didn't think he'd ever get tired of watching Aria T'Loak walk away.

"Kolyat!" he hollered, reluctantly turning back to the mountains of paperwork on his HI. The population wasn't much different from what it had been before, but half of the Ward was destroyed and a good two thirds of everyone had injuries of some degree. Add to that the lack of a daily routine — though fortunately not food or water — and you had a mess of galactic proportions even without the goddamned politicians meddling with everything. Despite the entire Council being dead or gone, the bureaucrats were hard at work trying to re-establish themselves. Bailey bitterly wished they'd work as hard on actual issues for once.

* * *

Calling the enormous space a gym would have been a grave understatement if the same word covered the little cubbyhole that performed the same function in the _Normandy_. Kasumi wasn't quite sure if all the ships were similarly equipped, or if the _Tiber_ was specifically purposed for rehabilitation, but the space covered three or four decks and by her quick count—something she'd had a knack for—there were five or six hundred soldiers, crew, and other personnel either amidst some therapeutic exercise, or merely there to keep themselves fit.

Liara had gone forth while Kasumi waited for the young man at the reception desk to retrieve her a set of clothing and changed, but the asari was not particularly hard to pick out of the human crowd, almost eye-achingly bright as her outfit was—although it did complement her blue quite well, which is more than Kasumi could say for her drab SA grey, which is what everyone else seemed to be wearing too. At least the little shirt had a hood on it that she could hide under.

Walking closer, she noticed a number of the soldiers nearby Liara were either staring at the asari openly or trying to cast surreptitious glances, and whispering with their neighbors. Liara, apparently stuck choosing between some kind of a skating simulator and an exercise bicycle, seemed oblivious to the quiet that was rapidly descending around the level they were on as well as the one above as more and more of the crowd took note. Finally, one woman braved the silence and called out to Liara by name, bringing the asari out of her rumination, head turning toward the speaker expecting to see a familiar face.

"Ooh, I _knew_ it was you! Say hi to Shepard for me…I owe both of you a drink!" the woman said loudly, spurring an avalanche of cheers, thanks, and enough offers of rounds to last an entire asari lifetime. A few even approached the bewildered and perturbed Liara for handshakes or more personal greetings.

Liara seemed to have recomposed herself by the time Kasumi made it to her side. Clasping her hands in front of her, she looked up and around her before speaking in a quiet but carrying voice. "I… Thank you, everyone. I apologize, I was not expecting a welcome such as this. You are all equally deserving of credit, but I will ensure your greetings are delivered. Now, I should—"

"Alright, you lazy bums," Kasumi hollered to the room at large, with her brightest smile plastered on, "leave her alone and stop trying to avoid your exercise!"

There were quite a few jovial catcalls from around the room, and the thief was satisfied to see the crowds slowly turning back to their own activities without apparent offense. Liara was left standing awkwardly in the middle of the room where she'd been stopped, looking around herself as if she was uncertain whether she had permission to return to her activity.

"You better get used to it, m'lady," Kasumi whispered, stroking the asari's shoulder comfortingly, "it's only going to get worse. But for now, let's exercise…I don't think my mobility is quite there for skating, but I'll race you on the bikes? Handicap you one leg!"

"You…can race with these too?" Liara asked, eyeing the quite obviously stationary bicycles suspiciously but somewhat recovered from her surprise and trying very hard to ignore everyone else in the room.

"Sure!" Kasumi chirped, and walked over to the wall to enable the race simulation from the HI embedded in the wall in front of the bikes. "Do you want something traditional like the Alps or Pyrenees back on Earth, or would you prefer a more modern setting like the Bekenstein hill circuit? Nevermind, we're going to the Pyrenees!"

Clumsily mounting her bike, Kasumi waited for Liara to climb on hers to point out the interface for automatically adjusting the various distances on the cycle to fit the rider's measurements, and then switched on the projection that transported the duo to a gorgeous hillside road overlooking the city of Pau in what used to be southern France. She was glad to see that, at least momentarily, the asari's concerned, contemplative expression dissolved into a furtive smile as she took in the vista.

* * *

"Hey."

Jack had claimed the patient bed and was lying on it the wrong way around with her legs propped straight up on the wall, reading something off a datapad she had floating in a biotic grip above her face. This left her right hand free to bounce a ball off the wall, and the left one to hold an apple she was taking bites out of. Liara had presumably informed her of the sleeping arrangements, as she didn't even turn to look when Kasumi stepped in through the door.

"Hi!" Kasumi responded cheerily, riding high on the endorphins from the race she'd won—apparently the asari weren't naturally inclined toward endurance. Unloading her few possessions on what looked like an air mattress and felt much more comfortable than the hard cot Liara had, she looked around the room and noted with satisfaction that a reasonable HI setup had been brought in for her use. Leastwise, she didn't _think_ Jack was terribly interested in such things.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Kasumi asked, peeling off her thin barefoot shoes and looking for her towel in the small gig bag she brought everywhere with her.

"Oh, shut up, or I'll…do something," Jack muttered with a vague wavy gesture of her hand and a smile reflecting off the datapad. "Soldier boy moved in with Steve. They're in one of these somewhere near here. The room number is…oh, fuck if I remember."

"You hungry? Call up the boys, we'll go get something to eat. Liara's meeting one half of the in-laws so she's not coming…and Miri's doing the doctor thing."

"Why the hell not," Jack replied, craning her neck to look at Kasumi, nose wrinkled. "You gotta shower first, though, you _stink_."

* * *

Steve was leaning his shoulder against the wall and speaking with a small group of soldiers who appeared to be in various stages of recovery, as the two women rounded the corner.

"Dumbass not coming, then?" Jack called out to the pilot, espying that the man had taken the opportunity to clean himself up and had actually found a clean and intact battle dress uniform somewhere.

Steve glanced over his shoulder and excused himself from the group before turning around to join the two in the direction of the officers' mess hall. "I thought he was with you?"

"Why the hell would you think— Oh, shut up, Kasumi," Jack admonished the tittering thief, and gave her an emphatic punch to the shoulder. "No, he's not with us."

"Hm, he said he was going to go _find her_," Steve explained, keying open the door with a traditional Officers' Club plaque on it. "Thought he meant you."

"Well, too bad, he can find his own— Fuck me," Jack growled as she heard a familiar voice bellowing something, with a very familiar slurred quality to it.

Steve dashed off toward the bar in the back corner at half run, with Jack close behind and Kasumi shuffling forward as fast as she dared with her hobbled leg.

"…your hand on me one more time, I'll court-martial your ass!" a young fleet captain was shouting at Vega and emphasizing his words by poking the marine's chest. The captain's retinue of officers was also bristling and gathering around their friend or boss, making a court-martial seem rather more like a plan B at the moment. Vega, unsteady as he was, was just about to push the man back when Steve grabbed him around the chest and somewhat successfully grappled the bigger marine's arms, trying to calm him down.

"No…fuck you!" Vega shouted, livid and struggling against Steve's grip. "You don't fucking get to say that and then hide behind your fucking rank—"

Jack stepped between the two men, pushing the captain back with one arm and jabbing at Vega with the other to try to get his attention with little success — he was dangerously close to getting an arm loose.

"Stand down, _lieutenant_! I'll say whatever I fucking please about that squid bitch, and you—"

The captain didn't get the chance to finish explaining his views before Jack, almost faster than even Kasumi could see, had a vivid purple flare around the hand that had just microseconds before been poking Vega's chest and then swung her whole body around with a trailing purple streak making a beautiful arc between the marine's chest and the location in space where the captain's jaw had been before Jack's strike dislocated it on both sides and shattered most of its left side into small bone shards.

Jack stood over the grotesquely mangled, unconscious man, now wholly wreathed in purple and with a feral sneer on her face, flanked by the hulking forms of both Steve and Vega whom the former had let go the instant the marine's rage was explained.

"Good thing there's a good hospital nearby. I think you gentlemen better leave before we airlock-martial every last one of you," Kasumi said solemnly as she stepped forward from behind the half-circle of now quite a bit less belligerent officers.


	22. Chapter 21

_A/N: Thanks to Ankamius for some beta reading! Or gamma reading, really. Or does the range invert upon publication, so that it's –beta? :)_

* * *

Hannah had been surprised by the throng of people outside and in the narrow corridor leading to the Officer's Club, until the stretcher that finally parted the crowd explained their presence clearly enough. Bar fights weren't all that uncommon, but judging by the injuries of the young, male captain being transported toward the hospital decks, this one had been quite spectacular. Hannah had to assume that the man was the proverbial other guy.

The club itself was far less crowded, and calm. Its furniture and surfaces were intact and there was no sign of an ongoing struggle aside from some raised voices in what Hannah surmised was the bar section in the back. The officers still around had turned back to their meals or company, she observed as she walked toward the pick-up window on the left-hand side of the room. The space was well-appointed in comparison to the OCs she was used to: the room was very large and had clearly divided sections aside from the main mess hall; small plaques directed people toward the doors leading to the reading room, the smoking room, a lounge, a _vid_ lounge, and the bar that was sectioned off from the main room. There were even a few comfortable-looking sleeping pods behind a soundproofed separator toward the back. In addition to more lavish furnishings, the designers had also accommodated the recovering soldiers by ensuring that all mobility assistants had adequate space to operate, and that the club was always staffed by a few extra hands.

The cook peeking through the pick-up window wall offered a cursory salute and quickly scanned her ID for the order. He assured her that it would be ready in a few moments after the brief delay in preparation due to the brawl earlier. Hannah nodded back, tapping the little counter thoughtfully a few times before giving in to her curiosity, straightening her uniform, and heading toward the bar area where the raised voices had not quieted for an instant since she'd walked in through the OC door.

Rounding the corner to the impressive bar area—almost a pub in its own right—the first thing that struck her was that aside from a single toppled stool and a small pool of blood, she saw none of the destruction that typically accompanied the fights she herself had all too often had to investigate in her previous posts. The room had more patrons than the mess side, most of them already engrossed in whatever they had been doing before the skirmish. A few nodded in her direction, either acknowledging her rank or recognizing her face. Not a few people had mistaken Hannah for her daughter since Eevy had started appearing in the news and recruitment adverts, especially since she was only older by 27 years rather than the more common 45 or 50. They _did_ look very much alike—if not identical, as some insisted. In Eevy only a slight sharpness of features, the darker brown of her hair, and her height reflected those of her father, physically. Her temperament, of course, was all Henry…

That she instantly recognized three of the faces behind a row of what looked like the entire _Tiber_ MP squad wasn't that much of a surprise. Her girl had always had the habit of befriending even those with tempers almost as bad as hers. There were no fewer than ten MPs, three of whom were engaged in a discussion about the best course of action and the others standing guard at distinct _un_ease, looking like they wished they had brought their riot kits with them. Hannah thought she recognized one of the speakers as sergeant…Nuan, perhaps, one of the regular guards assigned to guard Eevy and Liara's cabin. The asari would probably have known the man's hardsuit size, but Hannah was fairly certain about the name at least.

"Report, Chief?" Hannah asked curtly after confirming one of the other interlocutors wore the ranking insignia in the wall of muscle before her.

"Admiral! …Oh, Admiral—" the young chief responded after turning toward the new voice, with his initial happiness about no longer having the responsibility of rank quickly fading as Nuan's hasty whisper clarified that the newcomer wasn't just _any_ admiral. "MP Ops Chief Van Den Bak, ma'am. I…ah," the man hedged, "there was an altercation here."

"You don't say, Chief? I asked for a report."

"Er, there was a verbal disagreement between Lieutenant Vega," the chief said, jabbing his thumb back toward the obviously drunk, sullen bull of a man sitting on one of the stools, "and Captain Storimer, who you may have seen exiting earlier, and his retinue. The situation was escalating, but initially this group of Lieutenant Vega's acquaintances was trying to defuse it—until, according to the witnesses, the captain made the unwise decision to…ah, renew some of his earlier statements about a…certain asari ally," he finished with a meaningful look.

"Talk like Cerberus, drop like Cerberus," the lithe, tattooed woman behind him…Jackie, Jaqueline…said with a shrug. "And that's when it's not about my friend—"

"Be as it may," the chief interrupted, now with a little more authority. "Nought here could have killed the man—"

"I _should've_, but I didn't, did I? You little—" Nought started, but was hushed down by Zoe, the woman from the Presidium.

"I see," Hannah said after a brief quiet as she looked over each man and woman, her arms lightly crossed. "And your problem is that you can't bring Nought to captain's mast nor court-martial proceedings since she is a civilian and on the other hand, it's not strictly civil interference on military action since she's attached to the war effort…and ultimately you're unwilling to just let her go?"

The chief merely nodded.

"I see," she repeated as she paused to think. "If you have sufficient evidence from the videos and the witnesses, how about you record the offense and release her on my recognizance? I'll square it with XO Gek or Captain Dabrowskj, and inform Nought's supervisor for suitable disciplinary action. Captain… Storimer," she continued with a wave of her hand, "may choose to pursue a civil claim with your information, should he desire to publicly air his views about…a certain asari ally."

"That…I suppose. Are you certain that you'll be able to prevent any further trouble from her?" the chief asked, appearing genuinely concerned.

"I believe it'll be alright, Chief."

"Fine, then."

The MP squad took a final look around the scene, ensuring no evidence or witnesses had been missed, before being lead toward the exit by the visibly relieved operations chief.

"You three clean this place and get…ah, Vega to sober up or sleep it off," Hannah said sternly, turning toward the small group and fixing her gaze onto Nought. "_Never_ do that again aboard an Alliance ship, or I will take you out myself. We'll see what this Sanders has to say about you," she added.

"Ha, that's more like it! She was way too tranquil for a Shepard," Hannah heard the woman say as she turned back toward the main room and made her way to the pick-up window where the cook waited with her order.

* * *

"Hello, Liara," Hannah greeted from the door, stepping in to find the asari fussing with an _actual_ table cloth, trying to arrange it according to a projection she had hovering nearby. She had evidently obtained a large table and a futon-style sofa from somewhere Hannah could only begin to guess at, and rearranged the room so that the sofa had its own small table. There were two wine bottles set on the dining table—as well as two other bottles that Hannah guessed contained some type of asari beverage, all neatly arranged.

"Oh, my, I apologize," Liara said, straightening up and smoothing the front of her slacks. "I was not quite prepared yet…Ka— Zoe caused time to slip away from me earlier. Welcome—"

"Everything looks fine, Liara," the admiral reassured her kindly, offering the large box of foodstuffs for the asari to spread out.

As Liara dug into the casket, Hannah took the moment to step over to the bedside to take a look at Eevy. She was resting peacefully, as before, and breathing evenly. Worst of the bruising and smaller scrapes had started to fade away, and the borders of the synthetic bandages over where the burned skin and flesh had been stripped were showing signs of dissolving as they were designed to do when the tissue below began to match the chemical markers for healthy skin.

Everyone always did think mother and daughter looked alike, but Hannah couldn't but see Henry in her…and curse the stubborn bastard for having left just when he had. At least he _was_ somewhat safer out there away from all known civilization.

Looking back down and stroking the slightly curling tufts of uneven hair, Hannah thought the girl didn't look much different from how she had after one of the various times she'd cut her hair off as a kid. Hannah found herself stifling a whimper, heat in her eyes as she remembered the deep brown eyes, and the smile her daughter had almost always had waking up. Not even the eyes remained, but maybe all of the child wasn't yet gone.

"Have you— _Can_ you…talk with her?" Hannah asked without glancing back toward the asari, blinking away tears as she ineffectually fluffed the pillow and tugged at the blanket. "Through the bond, I mean. Or the…melding?"

"No," Liara said from the foot of the bed where she had quietly walked, leaning her elbows on the railing. "The drug-induced sleep she is in is too deep, for most of the time. When she is in the lighter regions, I could Meld—just as I could if she were merely sleeping—but it is quite likely that doing so would wake her. And she will be back soon enough," she added with a smile.

"How does it…can you actually talk in this Melding?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," the asari said with a nod, her gaze fixed on the shape of feet underneath the blanket. "It is more an exchange of ideas, or feelings, or emotions. Or all of those at the same time. I can show you some time when I am stronger, if you would like that? I have not trained very much, so it is quite strenuous for me."

"I…" Hannah stammered, "I suppose I would. Thank you for offering, Liara."

"I would be honored," the asari replied earnestly, turning back toward the table, and shifting a chair to sit down and examine the food the admiral had brought. "Now, please have a seat! I believe we will have ample time to eat before the broadcast starts, still."

Hannah leaned down to her daughter and kissed her on the forehead. Straightening up, she unbuttoned the jacket of her dress uniform and folded it neatly on one of the spare chairs lining the room. She took a seat, and looked over the various things the chefs had managed to procure and prepare.

"I didn't really even think about it," Hannah said apologetically at the asari on the other side of the table, "but I hope you're not allergic to anything? Tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure what all they prepared although it looks like they put a label on everything."

"We have not discovered any common allergenic proteins except for some species of what I believe are called the _faboideae_. Some kinds of _legumes_," Liara said, adding a clarification deciphering Hannah's look at '_faboideae_' as one of puzzlement. "Not all of them. _Soy-bean_ I can consume at least, but not _peas_ or _lentils_, for example. Although Dr. Chakwas was of the opinion that the reaction would only be…uncomfortable, rather than dangerous."

"We should be safe then," Hannah smiled at the asari. "These are actually mostly various animal meats, and then some potatoes and other root vegetables. I myself do not eat any non-grown meats, but…many animals were killed throughout the battles, so I can't really object to this. The meat was harvested, and Command has decided to try to consume them as much as possible to prolong food stores."

"This sounds like an adventure, then," Liara declared, already pulling up a dictionary sheet for the name in the first label, a _sheep_. She distractedly gestured to the two unfamiliar bottles as she was trying to rotate the projection to figure out how the animal was actually constructed. "These are just some traditional asari drinks, both are non-intoxicants. They do somewhat resemble the wines without…without the burn, if you should like to try them.

Oh! _That's_ where the head is!"

* * *

"_Thank you, Admiral Bajic. I am sure we're all glad to hear that the Commander is recovering well even though we did not have a chance to speak with her today. We do, however, have a member of her special task force, Urdnot Grunt, who was instrumental in recovering her after the Weapon was launched. Here is a short video that GNN obtained of the rescue effort."_

"Oh my," Liara said with a chuckle, "Grunt might never live this down with the other krogan…or perhaps more accurately, whoever tries to bring it up will likely not live it down. I thought the Search & Rescue command forbade publishing it, though."

Hannah slouched a little further down on the surprisingly comfortable sofa sipping some of the _arulii_, the lighter drink that tasted almost exactly what Hannah thought non-alcoholic champagne might except a dash spicier and a little fruitier. The asari, she had observed, quite liked sweet and bubbly drinks. "Could be a PR move…that Lidanya of yours is a crafty one. Painting the krogan in a far more positive light can only be a net win…especially if those persistent rumors about the genophage are true."

"You may be correct about that. Both of those things, I mean," Liara agreed sleepily, the lack of rest over the last several days really starting to catch up on her now that she had finally forced herself to take the afternoon and evening off her work. "But he really _is_ a sweet boy, as peculiar as that may sound. I and Dr. Solus believed that Dr. Okeer had accelerated his natural processes so that the bond that krogan develop with their parents—not so unlike that of the asari or the humans—is established very quickly. I am uncertain whether Grunt thinks of it in those terms, but I believe that he increasingly truly relates to Eevy as his mother."

"Serves her right," Hannah said with a distant smile. "a krogan boy is probably the only thing that can give her as much trouble as she gave us, growing up."

"Listen," she continued, "I meant to ask… Thee seemed quite enthused about the prospect of grandchildren. You're not…?"

"Oh, Goddess, no," Liara said with a giggle. "I must admit Aethyta has been rather unsubtle about the fact, but no. In addition to the middle of a war being a dreadfully dangerous time to bring new life into the universe, I am…I am still forty years away from even being able to bear a child without risk of complications. If trends from previous wars hold, I _do_ expect that the average age to enter matronhood will fall from the current 312.2 years to as low as 180-190 for the next century at least and that…sorry, that is not really what you asked," she stammered, the skin on her cheeks and crests darkening into a purple.

Hannah watched the bashful asari with a smile. It was strange to think that the young woman was twice her own age. The little reading she had managed to do, various short primers mostly, had explained that the asari maturation was physically slower than that of humans much in the same way that the salarians' was faster. It would have taken Liara over forty years to reach the level of physical and mental development a human was at the end of their teens, and then even longer to finish the gradual finalizations of mental and emotional development that humans underwent until well into their twenties. At her age, Liara certainly had much, much more experiences and knowledge, but as Hannah observed, her world view and perspective, her…maturity…didn't seem that different from what her own had been 25 years ago.

Noticing Liara looking at her curiously, Hannah decided to ask the question she'd been wondering about. "I'm sorry if this is tactless, Liara, but…I assume you two had the conversation about the…age thing?"

The asari looked over her shoulder at the reposed shape on the bed and smiled, with only the faintest hint of ruefulness that Hannah could pick up. "We have. I…learned early that many humans have a somewhat particular view on the issue; almost as if the human _lost_ something because his or her partner lived longer, in comparison to if they had chosen a human instead. As if it reduced their lives somehow.

"But time is the same for us as it is for you, so far as we can tell. A day feels like a day, a year a year, a century a century. A human life may seem fleeting in comparison of numbers, but those years are no less for us than they are for you. And do you not prefer that your— that if you should die, that Henry lived a long and happy life after? Or that your daughter would live another 500 years, not 50? Everyone does, I think. I am uncertain why humans do not see our situation that way.

"The war reminds us, too… As much as we might think that it is _I_ who is destined to feel sorrow, to rebuild after she is gone…I might die tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years. I…_we_ do not fear it."

Hannah, staring down at the glass she was holding in her lap, had to admit that she had instinctively felt that way, too, without really thinking about it much. Felt that it was somehow unfair to Eevy.

"I do not mean to sound so gloomy, Hannah," Liara said apologetically, turning back to the woman next to her, her smile brightening. "Miranda…Dr. Lawson, she says it is anyone's guess how much her…_recovery_ will help. She might live three, four times as long as humans usually do. And who can say what medical advances we can make now that we are no longer to be reaped? The human life span has already doubled in the last century, and we asari are not so unlike you, biologically…"

"Oh, gosh," Hannah blurted with a chuckle, "I'm not sure I could think of enough things to do if I lived a thousand years!"

"_Ahem…Thank you, Urdnot Grunt. A refreshing perspective from the krogan representative. Now, Matriarch Lidanya, could we get your comment on this breaking information that GNN has obtained, detailing proposals by Commander Shepard to establish a wider Galactic Council consisting of all the civilizations who joined together in this greatest war effort of all time, and to bring all the militaries into a galactic force, unified directly under this new Council?"_


	23. Chapter 22

"…_Made aware of this only yesterday, but based on informal discussions, the assembled militaries are cautiously open to such a centralization of forces, having seen firsthand how close we were to falling while we were divided — and even when we were united. With the exception of Primarch Victus, I do not believe that we as military officers can or should comment on the role of the council itself, Letana. That is something for governments to decide."_

While the signal traveled back and forth between Sol and Illium or wherever the GNN was currently broadcast from, Kaidan wondered if the ploy was as obvious to the target audience as it was to him. It definitely sounded like something Shepard would have said — and he doubted anyone would risk being caught fabricating statements by the Savior — even if he wasn't quite sure how they had come to use the information. A galaxy united sounded like a great idea, but he'd seen enough of the politics involved to know that an idea it was likely to remain. Still, he thought as he tried to find a more comfortable position in the hard chair, if it was ever going to become reality, it'd be now. Smart move.

"_Thank you, Matriarch Lidanya,"_ the asari newswoman said with a courteous nod when the feed reached her. "_Primarch Victus, you are both the civilian and military leader of the Turian Hierarchy, and turians are of course one of the current Council species. How do you feel about the plan to reorganize and expand the Council?"_

"_You understand that I have not had any opportunity to discuss with the hierarchs and naturally I cannot — would not — make unilateral decisions on issues of this importance,"_ the turian replied. "_Personally, I believe that we should explore this possibility. I believe we owe it to the person without whom we would __**all**__ be dead to do that much; to respect her judgment. Our record, after all, is three years of ignoring the threat at all levels of government and militaries. Eevy Shepard may not be a career politician, or have decades of intricate knowledge of political machinations, but I believe she has earned our respect and the right to be heard on this issue."_

Kaidan chuckled at the turian's surprisingly deft response that all but confirmed his suspicions about the concerted effort by the military leaders to prep the soil for Shepard to step into the power vacuum in the galaxy. They'd been so close to the precipice that the military minds saw the necessity of a reform. It was ironic that the entities most beings would probably characterize as nationalistic were at the forefront of driving unification…and if Kaidan was right, the diplomats would be the ones with the wedges.

"Liara?"

"Hush, doc," Kaidan said quietly, turning toward the woman and cursing himself for having woken her up. "It's Kaidan. Liara had to leave a while ago."

* * *

"…_We have been able to compile lists of the military casualties as you know, Letana,"_ Lidanya was speaking in the projection as Liara and Hannah sat quietly trying to absorb the enormity of the price that had been paid. "_Most of that information has been forwarded to the Council and the militaries' extranets for people to be able to search for their loved ones."_

Liara found herself painfully tensed, legs and knees pressed tightly together, arms against her sides and hands clutched in her lap. Here she was, still feeling happiness alongside the more ephemeral sorrow for the lives lost, the enormity of it all. It was so _unfair_. Trying to force herself to unwind, she drew her knees up to her chest, feet on the sofa, and stole a glance at Hannah to see that the woman seemed to be almost equally discomfited.

Liara hoped her efforts at making it a proper dinner did not seem frivolous to the human amidst all this… Benezia had given up trying to teach her daughter the actual skills involved in entertaining guests, but had managed to instill the obligation to try to always be the best possible hostess regardless of the situation. The human seemed to have been pleased enough, but she couldn't help but wonder. She almost blurted out an apology for making such an unseemly fuss about it before biting her lip, unsure whether it was needed, or would have the desired effect even if it was.

"_The civilian situation is, unfortunately, much greater in scale as well as more difficult to obtain information on. Most of this is of course happening outside Sol, but the military command here is attempting to help facilitate the process as much as possible and integrating this into the military channels._

"_We have no firm figures for a large portion of the galaxy, but the initial reports from homeworlds suggest that while the toll is…horrible…it is slightly better than what we had feared. Both Thessia and Palaven had to be abandoned, but the successful evacuations and dispersals of remaining population, combined with the withdrawal of the main Reaper forces, have helped avoid the worst possible cases. The estimated number of civilian lives lost on Thessia is 1.1 billion, and on Palaven 2.4 billion._

"_Sadly, the Reaper withdrawal was caused by the focus of their efforts on the home of humanity, Earth. We still have not been able to perform anything but the most cursory of surveys, but the destruction is…unprecedented. The attack occurred with almost no warning, leaving evacuation efforts minimal. Most survivors are from rural areas, although many were able to flee the population centers and hide or participate in the resistance efforts. The deaths number more than 6 billion, with a similar number of survivors."_

Just the figure from Thessia had stolen Liara's breath away, but Earth… There were barely over 6 billion asari in the entire galaxy. All those people…just erased in what seemed an instant. The shock was numbing. They had known that the situation was very dire on the ground, but she had hoped that the humans would have been able to take advantage of the huge landmasses they had in comparison to Thessia, and disperse there. The attack had just been too sudden…

Hannah's expression had hardly changed when Liara tilted toward the woman. As an admiral, she would have been informed earlier, of course, so her shock had come and mostly gone. Only the slightest tremble was noticeable when she turned to look at her daughter almost as if to ensure she had not disappeared.

"…_As was Kahje,"_ Lidanya was explaining. "_As far as we are aware, the population on Tuchanka had mostly been able to…maintain their distance to the Reapers. The best news we have comes from Rannoch, where almost the entire civilian fleet and the contingent of geth were able to avoid threats. The fate of the salarians is still a mystery, with no reliable reports from Sur'Kesh and the individual salarians we have been able to reach in various parts of the galaxy having as little information as the units here in Sol."_

"Did—" Liara started, correcting herself immediately, "do you know anyone there? On Earth, I mean?"

Hannah turned to Liara and stared back at her for several long seconds, enough for the asari to become profoundly uncomfortable, feeling tingles along her arms and legs from a compulsion to actually squirm and only barely containing herself.

"_Uhf_…I'm sorry," Hannah said finally, shaking her head as if to clear it, and easing Liara's anxiety. "I was…lost there for a moment. I…_know_ a great many people down there. Most of my friends, however, are either in the fleets, maybe retired on colonies…I can't think of any friends I know for certain would have been there. My family is from Earth, of course; I was born before we ever discovered the relays. I have two uncles and some cousins, some of whom are sure to be down there still. Both my parents died many years ago, though, and my brother was killed in the First Contact War…"

"I am sorry to hear that," Liara said, remembering the short-lived fear on the nets that the humans were going to be another aggressive species like the rachni had been. "It was—"

"A waste is what it was," Hannah cut in curtly, her voice brooking no disagreement. "We were stupid, they were stupid. I'm just glad it wasn't worse."

Liara looked away, unsure what to say. The human Admiral Bajic was explaining the situation about the geth on the projection, with Shala'Raan's cowl visible at her side, and about a quarter of Grunt's chestplate filling out the other half of the background.

"Henry's family, though…" Hannah spoke up again, "he's from a little group of islands called Åland, it's in the north part of the European Union. That is the federation in the area of Earth where London is," she added, pulling up a globe projection from her omni. "See, here is where London wa— is…Åland is, hmm, wait…I think you just follow the ocean to the east…ah, yes, there. See all these little islands here in this…what's it called, an archipelago?"

Liara nodded as she leaned forward to zoom in closer to the area, her curiosity momentarily overriding the apprehension she would normally have felt about touching someone else's omni without explicit permission.

"We have been there a handful of times…or Eevy has, I wasn't always able to come. Henry and she went just the two of them on a couple occasions. It seems so rarely now that I think back," Hannah continued, "but it's hard to do with both of us in various postings, often in the same place but sometimes not…

"Anyway, I think most of his family is still down on Earth. His parents live on the island, or I haven't heard any different from them, and I think his sister and her family might be there. Or maybe it was one of the bigger cities in that area, I'm not quite sure. I haven't heard anything about them, but the islands are one of the safer places to hide out, I hope," she said trailing off.

"I will see if I find any information for you, Hannah," Liara said, and — remembering herself — added, "if you give me a list of names to look for, I may be able to process the data feeds more effectively than the standard algorithms do."

The human raised an eyebrow at her, possibly wondering how Liara could possibly do better, but nodded appreciatively.

"What about you?" she asked as some GNN analyst was hard at work not actually asking a question from the assembled military leaders. "I know about your mother, of course, and Thee is here…do you have any friends or family on Thessia or elsewhere in the asari space?"

"I…" Liara started, someone taking an interest in _her_ still able to make her abash, and all the more so because she didn't think the woman was only asking to be polite. "I was never close to my mother's family. I am sure you are aware that our society still looks down on children born to two asari despite its public protestations. For someone of her status, it was not so hard publicly, but in private…I do not believe Mother spoke to her family much."

"I didn't know it was…that bad," Hannah said uncertainly. "There is no _actual_ biological downside to it, is there? I don't really understand the genetics, but it sounds exactly like two humans having children."

"It is," Liara agreed. "It is merely not as beneficial, but I suppose the apprehension is more of a…an article of faith. A superstition. Be as it may, I only saw my mother's family in official functions and other gatherings that they couldn't be seen to miss despite her presence."

Still feeling out of sorts, Liara tried to find comfort in shifting to a cross-legged sit before continuing. She tucked her feet under her knees and smoothed over the creases on the sides of her thighs. "Friends…I never had. As a small child I was mostly satisfied with my own company and adventures, but I had many playmates when that mood struck me. School and universities were…harder. I was not shunned, I suppose. I was always allowed to participate, to tag along…but no-one ever invited me, never made an effort to include me. In time, I…gave up hoping, and trying. My studies and research mostly kept me from company in any case, and—

"Goddess, I apologize…" Liara stammered, blinking away tears. "I did not— This is not—"

"Hush, there's no need to—" Hannah started, laying a cool, comforting hand on Liara's knee before both women were drawn back to the projection by a distinct change in the tone of the asari anchor.

Liara noticed that on the small images, only Shala'Raan remained where Bajic and Grunt had accompanied her before; Matriarch Lidanya was no longer in evidence, and Admiral Rastias had taken the Primarch's place.

"…_Moment. I'm sorry for interrupting the interviews briefly; we will continue with reactions from Sol on this event, but we have just been notified that all communications to Tuchanka have been lost. GNN is attempting to obtain independent verification of this as we speak."_

* * *

He was done for, he knew it. The rescue effort had gone on for four days and he had only stopped for the briefest of rests, but it was all merely a backdrop for the tempest that he was in. There was no escaping…and he didn't _want_ to. He had tried everything to capture it, to tame it; but not words, not music, not dance, not colors, not the clumsy shapes he had tried to draw…nothing could describe how he felt.

Looking back, he had to admit that he had loved her long before, despite his best efforts to drown out his feelings by concentrating on the mission…but nothing could have prepared him for that moment. That one instant with her hand in his, that one instant when he had seen her, felt her, _smelled_ her. That one instant when his heart had stopped and his entire body felt as if he floated in an ocean of light, weightless, a breeze caressing his skin as it never had been able to before. That one instant when he was home right where he was.


	24. Chapter 23

No sooner had the news anchor broken the information to the galaxy at large than a chime rang from the asari's omni, echoed by one of the HIs on the back wall. Hannah's priority channel came to life nearly the same instant, bypassing the normal notification and option to reject from her comm interface.

{Shepard, Bajic,} the admiral spoke curtly in Hannah's aurals. {I don't know if you saw that, but something is going on over on Tuchanka. I need the _Orizaba_ and the full escort group at battle readiness within the hour.}

{Aye-aye,} Hannah replied, already pulling up the _Orizaba_'s command channel to key in the macros to sound the alarm and notify her XO and rest of the command crew. {Do we know anything? Is it—}

{The Reapers we see are still dead as they were, but you're going to Charon as a precaution. I'm sorry about canceling your leave, but yours is the only complete battle group. Lidanya's setting up a channel, expect to be pulled in within the next few minutes. Out.}

{Understood,} Hannah acknowledged, her most immediate fear eased.

"_Matriarch Li— Ah, I'm sorry, we seem to no longer have the Matriarch. Admiral…Raan? What can you tell us about this event?"_

Hannah wrenched her eyes off the projection with the frantic asari newswoman and the quarian admiral who would undoubtedly be as clueless about the situation as Hannah was. Amita, her XO, was already on the command channel and sounding like she'd just woken up, when Hannah changed to it as her primary.

{…miral still offship? I've got the deck. Get me—}

{I'm online, Amita. I'm still on the _Tiber_, ETA _Orizaba_ 25 minutes. There is no immediate threat, but I need the full escort at full readiness by the time I'm there. Notify them, and activate the battle group channel. I—} she ordered, halting as her gaze fell on the asari next to her. {Listen…I'll be back in a couple minutes. Get it done.}

Liara had been on the verge of tears before, but the terror on her face now was heartbreaking to see. Her lips were parted as if to ask the the question that had instantly gripped Hannah herself, her body visibly shivering, pleading eyes staring back at hers.

Hannah pushed aside her own uncertainty and tried to smile reassuringly as she leaned forward and took Liara's cool, reluctant hands in hers. "I don't think it's them."

"Bajic says the ones here are still…dead, like they have been," she continued, hoping to assuage the asari. "We are probably in no danger, especially without the relay, but we're going back into readiness just to be safe. It might even be a false alarm."

Feeling Liara unwind, and seeing a resolute frown taking the place of fear, Hannah gave the asari's fingers a squeeze. The admiral released her hold, and used her arm to leverage herself off the sofa. Liara, after a moment's hesitation, untangled her legs and pushed herself up. She looked uncertainly between the table and her work desk in the corner.

"I'm taking the _Orizaba_ to shore up the defenses of the relay and the science teams there," she said as she reached over to grab her jacket off the chair and slipped it on. Attaching the clasps, she continued, "So I'm probably going to be gone for a few days."

"I understand," the asari said with a nod. "I will reopen my channels to the science teams immediately and we shall see if there—"

"You'll do no such thing," the admiral cut in with a shake of her head. "You really have to rest. You almost fell asleep twice since I got here. Who's gonna look after _her_ if not you? You can't do it if you don't look after yourself first. The little I know, I know that you need more sleep than we do, and I'm guessing by the look of you that you've not been getting much at all."

Liara flushed and tried to protest weakly, but Hannah cut her off. "We've got this. _I've_ got this. Just set your comms to let me through, and I'll _wake_ you to let you know if there's something to know. There's nothing that you can do from here that we can't."

The muscles under Liara's jaw and in her cheeks strummed briefly in what Hannah interpreted as frustration, but finally the asari gave her that sharp little nod of hers. She took a step toward the dining table and started gathering the utensils and dishes as Hannah looked on for a moment.

Satisfied that Liara had taken her advice, Hannah rolled her shoulders to let her jacket settle before straightening the hem and each sleeve in turn. She felt bad for ordering the asari around, and for leaving her to clean the mess. Hannah hoped that it would distract her long enough that she'd work most of the anxiety out and manage to actually sleep a while.

Hannah walked over to the bedside and stroked Eevy's hair tenderly, hoping that she wouldn't miss the day when her girl was finally allowed to resurface from her sleep.

_Hell, I'll gladly miss that, too, so long as we're all safe. Please let it be a complete waste of my time getting all the way to Charon and back…_

"I'll see you soon, Liara," she said when she turned away from the bed.

The asari turned around and gave her a furtive smile. "It was good to have you here, Hannah. You will contact me as soon as you know anything, promise?"

"Promise," the admiral nodded, and headed for the doorway even as she flicked _Orizaba'_s command channel back onto her primary.

{Amita? I'm on my way. Are all the group COs online?}

* * *

_No, it cannot be_ was what Liara had thought, light-headed, the room spiraling around her. _We __**won**__. It cannot be._ Hannah's touch and tone had brought her back before the words of reassurance made sense.

She stopped clearing the table when she heard the door close behind the receding voice, and leaned her balled fists on the surface, trying to quell their trembling. As much as she wanted to be angry at Hannah for ordering her around, the woman _was_ right…she desperately needed sleep. She was so tired that she was losing her self-control in addition to the ability to think straight. She flushed thinking how she had completely embarrassed herself with her self-pitying tripe…Hannah had been gracious enough to indulge her, at least. She had never really told anyone about that before; she had let Eevy see it, of course, but that was different because the woman had been there _with_ her. Talking to Hannah, Liara had been alone with her thoughts — and in those thoughts, having to relive them without anyone to lean on. Goddess, it seemed an eternity since she had been with her…since she had been whole.

She shook off the melancholy, taking quick, shallow breaths to settle herself and straightening up. She turned to face the bed, taking comfort in the peacefulness of Shepard's rest almost as if she could borrow it for herself. She tried to smile, to draw from that undercurrent of happiness that the worst of tragedy had not been able to silence. She walked over to her desk and, after a brief hesitation, tapped her palm on a drawer to unlock and open it. She examined the case of ampoules within with a frown, the number having dwindled far below what she had thought. She bit the inside of her lip, and pulled two out from their holes. Turning squarely toward the corner after a glance over her shoulder, she pushed first one and then the other into the slot in her omni. She walked to the disposal unit to discard the empty vials while she waited for lucidity to return once again.

Hannah had also been wrong about something. Finding out what might have happened to cut Tuchanka off was exactly what Liara could do better than anyone else. First the salarians, then the krogan…even if it was not the Reapers, _something_ was afoot. It could not be mere coincidence. There was nothing in Feron's missives, but so far as she could tell without any time information attached for fear of tracing, the most recent one would have been constructed by the drell at least 10 hours ago. Perhaps longer. Even if he did have something useful, it would take them hours to exchange even a pair of messages. She needed her QEC's back online; even with all of the assets she had onboard the _Normandy_, and Feron's constant help, she had only barely managed to keep up with the network. The well-hidden flashes of disappointment on Shepard's face had been soul-crushing every time Liara had to turn her lover away because she could not take her eye off her webs for even minutes in a time when the woman had most needed her constancy, her comfort.

Without the QEC's…it was all but impossible. She had hoped to be able to take advantage of the initial disarray of the peace to formulate some kind of a plan…_something_ to help her manage it all. This forced her hand before she was ready and she hated it. Still…

{Hi, Li!} Kasumi's voice rang out over a noise in the background that must have been quite loud to survive through the microphone input filter.

{Zoe, I am glad you answered—}

{It's you, of course I did,} the thief replied, sounding a little puzzled. {What's up? How was din-din?}

{It was…something came up. I know I said I would not—} Liara started, trying to keep her voice casual. {I need assistance moving those boxes _now_, not later as I had thought. Are you available to help?}

{Yeah, of course!} Kasumi exclaimed. {I'm just watching Jack get sloshed with the boys, anyway.}

* * *

"So what's this one for?" Kasumi asked, wiping sweat from her hairline and waving at the device sitting on the desk, its 'glyph 4' label facing upward. She'd been surprised that there were _actual_ boxes to carry — Liara had secreted away a few crates filled with components she claimed to have gathered from 'here and there'. The inadequate space in the room created another problem, but Liara had managed to get the guards to help them get rid of the sofa and table. Kasumi thought the young asari guard might have had a little crush on the oblivious doctor.

"It contains my personal VI," Liara said from the far corner where she was assembling some kind of a cooling system.

"I thought you had your VIs up in your system and on your omni?" Kasumi asked, surprised. If the systems she'd seen weren't even the _real_ ones…

"No," the asari said without looking up, her tongue peeking between her lips as she tried to align two thin pieces of fiber. "Those are just limited offline copies."

"It doesn't have the Shepard VI interface, does it?" Kasumi asked jokingly, and blew some stray hairs away from her face.

"No, it is not…although that would be quite fun, I think. She always complains about the interface I have on it now. Fun for a time, anyway," the asari added after a moment's thought.

They had set the equipment out all across the room in a precise order as indicated on the pieces themselves. Liara even apologetically placed a few bundles of connectors next to Shepard on the bed even though otherwise they had made sure to not interfere with the medical equipment or in any way intrude on the Commander's repose. It struck Kasumi momentarily how strange it was to have her laying there like a…piece of art, as life went on around her. She felt _used to it_, and a pang of guilt for that. Telling herself it was different because they _knew_ Shepard was going to be okay, she still stretched up and craned her neck to look at the woman breathing to remind herself of the fact.

Kasumi had been surprised to see the news feed about the Tuchanka situation when she emerged from the Citadel dive her three comrades decided to remain in. She quickly surmised that the threat was unlikely to be immediate, or the Reapers, given Liara's relative calm. She also guessed that the asari's change of heart about the equipment might not be entirely unrelated.

Liara had quickly gone over what she knew about the Tuchanka situation – which was nothing — when Kasumi got to the cabin. Since then, four hours of assembly and system configuration had flown by, the newscast on nonstop with the various analysts finding entirely new ways to avoid saying they had no idea what was going on. Admiral Shepard had called in, too, but she had no further information to give except to reassure them that the Reaper corpses seemed to be as inert as they had been before.

"I believe that is it…" the asari muttered, eyeing the rather rickety-looking construction that enveloped and occasionally reached into the two completely standard cluster bays that they had unceremoniously attached the two larger boxes to. "I wish I had a better idea about the fundamental technologies…but I believe we should be ready to turn them on."

Kasumi didn't recall having seen anything like the extra contraptions in the slots she'd liberated the larger devices from on the _Normandy_, but the entire wall of Liara's cabin had been an enormous console full of supporting equipment and components so that didn't mean anything. She was pretty sure they'd not been building a bomb, at least, but that was about as far as she was comfortable guessing. It _seemed_ deceptively simple; there was definitely a cooling system, and some of the parts had names that suggested an electromagnetic generator, or diffusor, or something like that. She turned toward Liara to ask her about the actual purpose, her curiosity only having increased the closer they got to completion.

The asari was looking at Kasumi, silently but with an intensity the thief had rarely seen. Her head was tilted and her eyes narrowed in contemplation. Her arms were crossed, with hands tucked in at the elbows.

"Li…?" Kasumi asked carefully, slightly unnerved.

Instead of answering, Liara unfolded her arms and closed the distance between the two. She stood only a handspan away when Kasumi turned her face up to the taller asari's. The intensity was still there but, up close, the expression behind it was soft and kind.

"Do you trust me, Kasumi?" Liara asked quietly, her unblinking eyes looking straight into Kasumi's.

"Yes," the thief replied without thinking.

The asari nodded without a word, her lips drawing to a small smile. She raised her forearms to Kasumi's sides almost as if to hug her at the waist, but without touching the woman. "Take my arms."

"Then, look into my eyes…and _embrace eternity_."

* * *

Everything at Charon was as calm as Hannah had quietly wished. The battle group had rendezvoused with the bulk of the scientific vessels and their escorts about an hour out from the relay where the small contingent had retreated as a precaution. A few smaller ships had remained to monitor the ancient structure but all their readings showed absolutely no changes in the last several hours, indicating that the relay was still inactive and posed little threat.

Hannah had distributed her ships in a standard relay defense formation, making minor adjustments both to shield and to avoid obstructing the operations of the scientific ships. A detachment of cruisers and their escort frigates was tasked to canvass the perimeter outside the termination shock, using the more sensitive interstellar monitoring systems where they would be unaffected by the solar interference. If something came through here, they'd at least know about it even if they were unable to contain it.

She had managed to nap a few times in the 5-hour transit, splitting the monitoring duty with her XO after it became apparent that there might not be any solid news for some time. She had called up Liara to tell her as much, and had come away uncertain whether the asari actually had taken her advice about resting. During the trip, the entire military apparatus had not managed to find any further information about the events — nor had the civilians. The good news was that they had gotten reports back from all corners of the galaxy, and all of them confirmed that the Reapers remained inert, and that there had been no indications of hostile force movement.

{Good to hear it, Admiral Shepard,} Lidanya said when Hannah concluded the sitrep she had given once she felt that the sector was secured as well as it could be. The asari commander's eyes were turned down to a datapad or HI in her lap, as was the case with most of the other commanders present in the conference projection.

After a brief lull, Bajic turned from her XO offscreen to speak up, just as Amita approached Hannah's side with some new reading data from the interstellar detachment.

{I think it is wisest to keep you stationed there until we find out what is going on,} the admiral said. {We are dispatching small cruiser groups to attempt to cover the heliosphere to avoid being taken by surprise by any threat that might approach from outside the solar system. To say that the Earth space is well-defended seems like an understatement, and we've had the perimeter expanded out. The forces around Mars have been bolstered, and we have prioritized reassembling battle groups from the surviving vessels. Ground forces have been alerted.}

The matriarch was about to say something in response, when an unfamiliar voice spoke up, drawing Hannah's attention back to the screen. The image that was enlarged to indicate the current speaker was that of the rogue salarian major, Kirrahe. She couldn't remember the man talking at all before, though he seemed to have been following intently.

{Summary from my perspective, if you allow,} Kirrahe said, anxiety clear in his voice but his cadence slightly slower than most of the salarians Hannah had heard.

Lidanya frowned, but nodded for the major to proceed.

{Something happened to the salarians either some time before the final battle, or immediately thereafter,} Kirrahe recounted, leaning his elbows on the table he was sitting behind, and fidgeting with his hands. {No more information because salarians withdrew support and all forces due to the genophage cure…controversy. The Annos Basin relay seems functional unlike the inactive ones, but no traffic, no communications.

{Now the DMZ has gone silent, without any previous warning. Problem is not technical in nature, same as Annos. Reapers are still dead. There is no suggestion of other enemies or groups mobilizing in known, reachable space. Conclusion is unfortunate, but obvious.

{What happened to Tuchanka _is_ the salarians.}


	25. Chapter 24

Arching her back and rolling her shoulders, Miranda tried to coax some of the knots out of her muscles, with little success. The stims had worn off hours ago, and while the detox packs Liara got her did help her shrug off the previous night, she'd gone far too many days with little or no sleep. Her body and mind were both very close to their substantial limits, and missing her daily yoga certainly wasn't helping. Fortunately, she thought as she stepped back up to the operation table, the Normandy crew were among the very last of the flood of critical patients from the battle. The remainder could be treated on a more leisurely schedule as their injuries were of a nature that did not require immediate remedy to avoid long-term problems, nor caused them insufferable pain. The medical staff would have acute work for weeks, still, and long-term care and convalescence for several months in many cases, but they would at least be able to start setting normal schedules with proper rest and recuperation.

Miranda herself was somewhat more fortunate than the regular medical staff, her special expertise allowing for some discretion in how she spent her time; Shepard had absolute priority, with no less than two hours a day allocated for monitoring, and beyond that only a select few had suffered — and _survived_ — injuries where her methods of tissue regrowth were necessary rather than merely beneficial. She was willing to make an exception for the crew of the _Normandy_ and treat them even if for most the only difference would be the absence of scars, but the rest could be dealt with in normal order.

She had already agreed to organize training in the new techniques starting the following week, hopeful that her students — mainly burn specialists and plastic surgeons from all of the various medical corps — would be able to make themselves useful enough that she did not need to spend weeks scurrying around the hospital ships doing busywork. The asari had even offered a special commission as a consultant to their medical corps; a rather good post, if likely to be dreadfully boring. The only asari she really particularly cared for had declined her immediate assistance, anyway; Liara was strangely proud of her admittedly very impressive scar. At least she had agreed to allow attempts to regrow the missing fringe-tip when the acute cases had been dealt with…

Waiting for a few seconds for the three other surgeons to be out of the way so as to not disturb their work, Miranda darted closer and pulled her HI cart away from the table and guided it toward the wall where it could be taken for decontamination by one of the orderlies. Rounding back to the foot of the table, she took a look at the medical data being fed directly into her suit uplink. The footage from the tools of the two surgeons at the opposite end was hypnotic; a deadly dance of jabs, feints, and touches around the cerebellum and medulla of their patient. It had taken several hours to reconstruct and reinforce the skull and to patch up the damage around the brain. Now, with their equipment showing that the treatment had been successful in maintaining or improving activity in the affected areas of the brain, they had moved to trying to fix the nervous system.

Miranda felt a pang of compassion for the young woman. Even if they hadn't really been friends, they had at least been _friendly_, and spent some time together socially aboard the _Normandy_ — something that she couldn't say of too many people. Daniels had been lucky in that, as far as they had been able to piece together, she hadn't been at her post in the compromised engineering section. She had even been lucky in that she had been able to strap into one of the secondary chairs, but not lucky enough for the chair to survive the immense forces it had been subjected to. Her prognosis _was_ steadily improving, but it would likely be an unpleasant reality the woman woke up to…if she did.

Dr. Chakwas's staff had done a remarkable job securing the more severely wounded, in their condition and with the equipment available to them. With their efforts, and those of the very skilled surgical team, it was possible that Daniels might make a full physical recovery. Whether she would have severe long-term mental damage remained to be seen.

Miranda sighed inwardly and turned off the surgical data streams. Muttering a final thanks on the surgical channel, she stepped back from the table and headed for the decon room.

* * *

The room vanished into complete darkness. Sound faded away. She felt sharp, fluctuating vertigo, as if her body was moving between two places, jerking her mind back and forth at a nauseating speed. A thought appeared in her head, urging—

_Calm._

The vertigo subsided. Slowly, all sensation ceased…the air on her skin, the vague awareness of her body fading away until nothing remained but her thoughts, and the others.

_Safe._

The nothingness receded, faint sensations returning. Her body was there, weightless and fluttery. Formless light flooded her eyes.

_Calm._

Kasumi was sitting on a tall rock. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she was leaning back, supporting herself on her arms. The stone under her palm was cool and worn smooth by the weather, and as ran her hand over it, it felt dusty like sand.

_Please._

She looked down from her vantage and saw Liara looking up at her from the foot of the rock. She nodded. The asari smiled and, without so much as a flare of biotics, floated up the side of the rock and stepped onto the top surface. She knelt down and looked Kasumi in the eye before turning to take in their surroundings. Gentle probing fingers danced on her consciousness.

_Confusion. Safe. Calm._

Kasumi shrugged. She _was_ calm. The calmest she had ever been was just here, the enormous window in front of them the only source of illumination in this black space. The silent dance of light outside was as beautiful as it had been then, but she was now safe here, with Liara. The asari smiled as she turned back to her.

_Trust._

_Friendship._

_Affection. Love. Hope._

Suddenly, the thoughts became something more. Kasumi felt the rush of emotion envelop her and flush through her. She drank it in, letting it strum her gently, letting it find hers. She leaned into it, understanding, allowing her own out. She reached her reciprocation into a gentle embrace, entwining her emotions with the asari's. She smiled back. _Always._

* * *

Miranda wasn't terribly surprised to see Chakwas up — against her direct order — when she stepped through the barrier into the room housing the doctor and Specialist Traynor. The chart on her omni did confirm that the older woman had in fact been sleeping for most of the nine hours since she'd been ordered to bed. The fitfulness of her consciousness graph was unsurprising given the physical exhaustion and her refusal to take sedatives, but there seemed to be at least a few good bouts of REM sleep in there. Enough, hopefully, to reset the brain from the outskirts of psychosis where over three days of sleep deprivation, stress, and minimal nutritional intake had left most of the stranded crew. The unconscious ones had been luckier in that respect.

"Dr. Chakwas," she said quietly, allowing a hint of kindness to mix with disapproval in her voice. "I will permit you out of the bed for another quarter hour, but only if you sit down."

The woman turned from the HI she was using, glaring back. The sharpness in her eyes had remained throughout but, to Miranda's satisfaction, there was renewed vitality in the rest of the frail body now. In the dim lighting of the room, Miranda could not detect much of the trembling that had been the specialists' main cause of concern. With a huff, Chakwas turned back to the HI…but also reached for a chair tucked in a nook beside the cluster of medical equipment.

Miranda walked closer, careful to not wake up the younger woman, who was fast asleep. She seemed better off than Chakwas, overall, but there were some concerning readings in her standard panel — aside from the injuries from the crash altogether.

"You could at least call me Karin if you insist on treating me like a child."

"I'm not—" Miranda started, pivoting direction as she interpreted the gentleness of the scolding. "…Fine, _Karin_ — I want you back in bed in fifteen minutes. I'd prefer it if you tried to sleep, but if you can't, I will get you an intranet connection, or authorize you on the crew's medical files…anything to at least keep you in bed. I suppose I should be grateful that you still have your IVs in."

"I may be stubborn, but I'm not an idiot, Lawson. As it happens, I _would_ like to be able to see the medicals. I won't object to getting extranet access, either."

"Miranda. And intranet. There's a…problem with the relays. Some relays, not all," Miranda added quickly, trying to avoid adding further stressors. "Connections outside the system are effectively nonexistent for people at our level."

Chakwas glanced back at her, an eyebrow slightly arched. "Should have known she'd mess _something_ up," she mused as she supported herself on the chair — and Miranda's quickly extended arm — to sit down. "I take it that we're not _too_ concerned about it?"

"Liara can tell you more about it, I'm sure. As far as I understand, the worst case scenario is that we're going to have to fly a few months to reach a relay to get back into the network."

"That's not so bad, I suppose. Except if you need to evacuate a few billion people."

Miranda had no answer. Content that the older woman seemed to be doing much better, she took a look at the stats of the specialist on the bed. "Who's this again? I know I've seen her, but…"

"Specialist Traynor. Sam," Chakwas replied, rubbing her eyes and flinching at the sensation on her inflamed flesh. "Came with the ship from Earth, and the Commander put her in charge of our communications processing rather than abandon her on the Citadel. Very capable young woman. Delightfully nice person, too. Quite enjoyed her company."

"Ohh, wait, is she the one—"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Chakwas said, cutting her off.

"Ah. How is she doing?"

"You can see it as well as I can."

"Your faith in my abilities is flattering, but I'm not a _real_ doctor. I just play one at the end of the world."

Chakwas smirked at her, and reached forward to pull up the charts on the HI. "She's young. She'll probably shrug this off like a hangover. I am a little concerned about her mental state, but hopefully her outlook will improve as the shock wears off and her chemistry gets back into balance. I'd appreciate it if you kept an eye on that. And kept it in mind when deciding when to discuss further treatment."

"I'll be sure to let the attending know. In fact, you can do that when I get you access. I think we can get a psych visit, too," Miranda replied, nodding her understanding. "If your condition continues to improve, though, I think that we can reinstate you as their primary physician before that becomes a pressing issue. If you think you're up for the work, that is."

"That's a subtle way of telling me I should stay in bed like a good girl, isn't it?" Chakwas asked, but her eyes betrayed her pleasure with the unexpected concession.

"I did not think I was being too subtle, really," Miranda countered, leaning back against the railing of the bed, "but your acuity seems to have improved from before, if you don't mind me saying. Sleep _does_ help."

"I know it does."

"Your chart looks much better. How do you _feel_?"

"I would like to say I've been worse, but I try to avoid lying whenever possible," Chakwas said with a wry chuckle. "But not too bad, considering. The palsy is clearing out," she continued, lifting her arm for Miranda's inspection, "and I am thinking much clearer, thank you. Help me up. There's nothing I can do for her right now…I'd rather at least review the others' charts than just sit here uselessly."

Miranda did as she was bid, supporting the small weight of the woman as she struggled out of the chair. As Chakwas shuffled past the divider toward her half of the room, she quickly tapped the HI to turn off the displays and to dim the lighting around Traynor. Miranda followed, tapping her omni to grant the access authorizations she had promised.

On the other side, she found Chakwas already climbing into bed, assisted by a man dressed in an Alliance navy uniform. It took her a moment to recognize the face in the dim lighting.

"Alenko?"

The man looked over at her and nodded as he propped up the pillows and let Chakwas settle down.

"Well, _you two_ should have lots to catch up on," the doctor said, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Can I see the Commander and the others tomorrow, Lawson?"

"You can have visitors, but I don't think the attending would let you go see Shepard even if she were awake. I wouldn't." Staving off objections with a flick of her hand, Miranda continued: "If all goes to plan, you should be well enough for a short trip in three–four days. She should be up by then, too."

* * *

The room returned with a rush, throwing Kasumi out of equilibrium. Her balance lost, she clamped her hand around Liara's upper arm, and felt the asari's cool fingers tighten around hers as they both tried to keep themselves from floundering. She opened her eyes just as Liara let out a small moan, and her unsteady weight tugged backwards more forcefully.

Kasumi pulled in a little to help the asari, her own footing now steadied, and gingerly tried to turn them both slightly to bring them in line with a chair at the side of the bed. Gently, she allowed Liara's weight to pull them back to the chair, and finally let her slump onto it.

"Are you alright?" she asked, leaning down to fan the asari's face. "That was…that— _Whooooaa._"

Liara tilted her head up for long enough to smile before having to lean down and lay her forehead on her knees, fingers massaging her temples. "Can you…bring me some juice?" she mumbled into her thighs.

Kasumi took a look around and spotted the half-empty carafe of apple juice on the desktop. Shrugging off the ghosts of disorientation, she strode over to pour some in a disposable cup she shook off the stack thereof. Liara was still hunkered down, moaning quietly.

"I _really_ hope it's not like this when you, _you know_…" Kasumi said with a bright grin as she gently tapped Liara on the shoulder with the cup and then dangled it down in front of her.

"_Goddess…_" the asari groaned, fumbling around to snatch the cup without looking up until Kasumi squatted down and pressed it into her hand.

"No, it is—" Liara said between greedy gulps, her head only perfunctorily inclined to avoid getting the liquid all over herself, "…More difficult…for me to…restrict…to just…thoughts."

"_Ouhh_…I really must train this more," she continued, finally straightening up on the chair and looking Kasumi in the eye. "I am very grateful that you allowed me to…intrude in such a manner. I would have preferred to find out naturally… I would never have imposed on you if…the situation was not so very dire."

"OK…now you're scaring me, Li."

"Oh no, I am so sorry, I did not mean to frighten you…" Liara started, paling to an ashen gray as she tilted her head up to Kasumi, and reached her hand out to hold the human's. "It is not…I do not believe it is anything that you might be frightened of."

"That…is somewhat reassuring," Kasumi said with a small, lopsided smile. "What _is_ it, exactly? What's so mysterious that you had to do…whatever it was that that was," she finished, momentarily reliving the intensity of the feeling of friendship she had felt in the Melding.

"I…needed to ensure I could trust you. …Goddess, this is coming out all wrong," she gasped, seeing Kasumi's crestfallen expression. "I do not mean I did not trust you, I know I can trust you, and you are a friend whom I love dearly! But this is…different. This is life and death. This is something I would not have dared ask of you for many years…both so that I had that trust in you…and you in me. This is all wrong…I am sorry, I am being so dense, I cannot say it right. This is supposed to be a _good_ thing! I can never–"

Kasumi bit her lip, _understanding_ what Liara was saying perfectly, but unable to completely ignore the pit she felt deep in her gut; a feeling of disappointment she knew was not quite fair. She had felt the strength of the asari's feelings, she _knew_ that the other had trusted her as deeply as she herself did in return. She had felt the strengthening of their connection in that knowledge. She understood that even friends of decades might not tell eachother everything. She knew that you could never truly _know_ another without this kind of a connection…but she could not completely assuage the hurt she felt.

"I…understand," she simply said, trying to smile away her aching heart and squeezing Liara's hand back. "Tell me…what is it that you were risking mortally offending me for?"


	26. Chapter 25

_A/N: As always, thank you for the reviews, PMs, faves, follows, and other contacts. They mean the world to me :)_

* * *

The drone of the alarm burrowed slowly into his dreams. A vibration ran through the ground beneath his feet and the forest of neon signs reaching kilometers into the sky pulsed a brief, steady rhythm, reflecting off the ever-present drizzly rain. His eyes opened for an instant but once more the dream claimed him into the world of neverending, circular, garishly lit streets of the city in which he had never felt at home. With a last distortion in the voice of the street vendor, the insistence of the signal finally wrenched him into consciousness.

"Patch it through."

"Ship?"

Feron blinked excess moisture from his eyes as he wrangled himself out from underneath the rustling, silvery thermal blanket. The cabin was gradually brightening, with the monitoring program having registered his vitals shifting into a waking state. A time projection hovered in the air in the center of the small space, telling him he had managed to sleep for a few hours, and the count of events that he had missed in his slumber blinked an uncaring, mocking staccato just beneath. He had turned off the aural alarms, he knew he had… several breaths were captured and set free before he pinpointed the source of the still-repeating noise with a start.

_Oh, sh—_

Leaping over a small, anchored table — and painfully hitting his shin on it in the process — he lunged toward the bulkhead separating his sleeping compartment from the passenger cabin. Seeking purchase, he gripped the frame of the portal. Despite painfully slamming his shoulder into the hard, tapered edge when his elbow buckled under his sideways momentum, he managed to keep his footing and dash the last few strides to slap his palm onto the panel that swung open the special equipment access hatch even as he shouted the passphrase at the VI at the top of his lungs. A hiss above and behind him caused him to twist around and launch himself toward the strategically placed, low arm rest of a sofa. Timing his step onto the elevated surface, he pushed himself up and slightly to the side, letting his speed carry him through the altered trajectory and right to the hatch in the ceiling. Without bothering to ascertain the solidity of his grip, he waited until his body swung back, its forward velocity exhausted, and pulled himself up through the aperture with a little more effort than he liked to admit.

_Come on, hold just another second…_

For all that work, the only thing he needed to do in the cramped, humming space was to toggle a manual switch to connect the QEC array into the communications network. Cursing the stupid precautions he had thought might secure the ship from atypical scans, he flipped the small metallic pin up in the engaged position. He drew a short breath to focus himself, and dropped back down through the hatch, landing gracefully into a deep squat.

"Patch it through at my location."

Settling his breath as he straightened up, Feron turned his eyes up just as a slightly bluish-tinted room somewhere far away materialized in front of him, and through the slight pixelated distortion a familiar face—

_Ozone smell in the air. Not the equipment, firefight. The intruder in the black and gold armor sets a gun down, plasters hands onto the bloodstained window, brings helmet close, maybe yelling. The other, white and gold, looks over, turns back to the consoles. Electric whine around him wanes. Static plays on his skin. The soldier in black unfastens the clasps holding the helmet in place, pulls it up and to the side, lays it down. It's her. Vigor flushes through his listless body. He sees the asari shouting at him, the window blocks all sound. She turns toward the white and gold, gestures with her hands, animated, emphatic. The other looks up again, around, points toward the console on the other end of the window. The asari moves quickly, touches the panel with an ungauntleted hand. A crackle, rustle echoes in the room, then her voice—_

"Feron!"

_Arashu…_

⁚

⁚

"Alenko?"

Kaidan looked past Chakwas and at the woman standing on the other side of the bed. The _Cerberus_ woman. Raven-black hair in a tight knot, dressed in an impeccably clean medical tunic. Her features were unusual, but rather comely. Strikingly so, on this third look he had given her, and more because of her singular appearance than despite it. He nodded, acknowledging her presence and the correctness of her guess.

As he helped Chakwas settle back down, he observed with some satisfaction that she seemed to be much more steady and certain in her movements. She'd been out for…he didn't know how long, seeing as he himself had dozed off for long enough for her to get out of bed and over to the other woman's side of the room…At least several hours of sleep, combined with the IVs and therapeuticals. He could only hope that the others were responding to the treatment equally well.

"Well, _you two_ should have lots to catch up on," Chakwas said, nudging Kaidan's arm with her elbow. "Can I see Shepard and the others tomorrow, Lawson?"

Kaidan settled for a quiet, equivocal grunt and let the two women continue their talk, turning around to tidy up the chair he'd napped in. He pushed the chair back to the wall, and gathered up the blanket he had appropriated from the pile of ones Chakwas had felt she could do without, and folded it up neatly before setting it down on the chair.

"Alenko, can I have my datapad back now?" Chakwas asked impatiently.

Kaidan arched an eyebrow and cast a surreptitious eye at the…at Lawson, deciding it would be best to avoid drawing her ire even if he wasn't quite sure how she'd ended up acting the doctor for the _Normandy_ crew. He knew, of course, that she'd been in charge of Shepard's…recovery, but the woman he had seen on Horizon had seemed every inch the warrior — he could barely envision her an administrator, let alone a doctor. Still, that change was hardly the only one she'd undergone recently. She had been so poised, self-assured…such a stark contrast to the hesitant, almost lost, _human_ woman he now saw.

Lawson nodded to approve the request, but not subtly enough for the pair to escape Chakwas' disapproval; her harrumph was decidedly displeased as Kaidan meekly handed the pad to her. Muttered invective was still quite purposely audible when Lawson cleared her throat.

"Well. I should be going. _Try_ to get some sleep. I'll leave instructions for the attending as we discussed."

Chakwas acknowledged the departing younger woman with a meaningful scowl, and turned back to the datapad without so much as a glance toward Kaidan. He hesitated a moment, watching Lawson's receding back, and then sprinted around the foot of the bed and bounded after her.

_Gotta start making inroads __**somewhere**__._

Lawson turned to look over her shoulder as Kaidan caught up with her at the entryway, tilting her head and body back slightly and raising an inquisitive brow.

"Listen…can I have a word?" Kaidan asked as he fell in step with the woman.

"…Sure. I'm not certain there's really much that I can tell you that wouldn't be in the charts, but—"

"No, no, sorry," Kaidan faltered. "That's not what I want to talk about, really."

"Well? Go ahead," Lawson prompted when they stepped into the decon room in silence, Kaidan still waiting for an affirmation of permission before continuing.

"I, ah, I just wanted to…thank you for all you've done," he said uncertainly, forcing himself to get it out before he lost his nerve. "For…here—" he continued, emphasizing with a gesture encompassing the ward behind them.

"You're welcome, I suppose…as I understand, you weren't quite sitting on your laurels regarding the _Normandy_ either–"

"And Shepard," Kaidan interrupted. "And for– I know we've been at odds, if mostly indirectly. Cerberus and—" he said, waving his hand and shaking his head in exasperation, "Just… thanks for what you did back then. She wouldn't be around if you hadn't done what you did."

The woman stared at him intently, showing little reaction to his words. Struggling to keep going without an indication how she might feel, he continued as the decon doors hissed open and they stepped into the corridor leading to the rest of the ship.

"I…don't know what your motivations were back then, but that doesn't matter. You made a difference, and I'm grateful for that. I gotta admit that I'm glad that you got out of Cerberus in the end but, you know, regardless… Shepard trusts you, and that's good enough for me. I can't fault her judgment in most things."

"I guess this doesn't sound like much of an apology," he said, turning around and coming to a halt after a few backwards steps to stop her at the intersection, "and I guess it isn't. I can't say if I was wrong about you back then, but that doesn't matter anymore. I know that the way I felt back then would be wrong _now_, so…just thanks.

"I don't know about being friends, Lawson, but if you need something, I'm not going to turn you away. I hope you can do the same for me," he finished, his courage wavering enough that he couldn't make himself wait for an answer from the intent but impassive woman. Without another word, he turned on his heels and strode into the corridor leading to the crew decks where he had left his kit.

He didn't see her remain standing in the intersection, watching him until he disappeared through the doorway at the end.

⁚

⁚

Liara could not help but flash a quick, wan smile at Kasumi's enthusiasm. She hoped it was a good sign her friend was not terribly upset with her…she knew what she had said must have sounded very hurtful even though it was true, and though she _had_ thought her very dear even before. Risking tilting her head for a look, she was somewhat further consoled by the compassionate expression the woman wore.

The terrible nausea and dizziness she suffered every time she had to restrain the Melding to a purely mental connection was finally receding, aided by her quick, steady breathing and the soothing coolness of the juice. She was sure _most_ asari were much better able to control their bodies — her mother and Sha'ira certainly were — but for her, trying to keep herself from encroaching upon the other made it so very hard to keep her _own_ biological processes functional. She was always worried that she would end up neglecting her breathing or disrupting her heartbeat for just long enough to collapse in the middle of a Meld, which would be a very unpleasant experience for whoever she was partnered with. She was eternally grateful that Shepard had immediately agreed to sharing of the physical, too, as soon as Liara had worked up the courage to ask her. The gut-wrenching fear she had harbored those first times they had Melded before she did was still easily summoned from her recollection; then, she could not bear the thought of causing distress to the Commander, and now she could not imagine what might have happened had she not dared to suggest it…would they simply have lost everything then and there, because of _her_?

She shook her head to rid herself of such thoughts — _we won, we __**did**_ — and immediately regretted it as a new wave of queasiness flared up, forcing her head back between her thighs. Trying to focus on the task at hand, she mumbled for Kasumi to go turn the new equipment on.

"What was that? You really need to try talking into a direction where the sound waves don't immediately get absorbed by pants."

Letting out a giggle despite herself, Liara groaned and forced her body to straighten up slowly, one group of muscles at a time. "I said to go to turn on the equipment…you must engage the two switches on the inner left side of each harness," she said quietly, pointing toward the contraptions around the cluster bays. "Then we can have the VI interface with them."

As Kasumi stepped over and bent down to look for the toggles, Liara drew five short breaths, and pushed herself up off the chair. Steadying herself on the bed frame, she felt her blood rush toward her feet, leaving her light of head until circulation finally fed her brain again a few seconds later. She stole a glance at herself in the mirror projection on the wall next to he doorway, and decided to pull on her tunic to make herself at least remotely presentable for the occasion. The machines hummed to life as she was fastening the small, perfunctory gold clasps on the front.

"Good, now Glyph," she said, pointing toward the box on the desk. Kasumi leaped up and straddled the saddle chair, feeling around for the connectors at the back for a few seconds before finding the correct one and enabling it. As the two women watched, the box unfolded. To Liara's great relief, her steadfast little helper materialized moments later, wreathed in a white spherical projection as it seemed to prefer.

"Good evening, Dr. T'Soni," the machine intoned politely after the briefest scan to identify the asari and swinging around to the human. "Good evening, M. Garondt. Do you prefer that name?"

"Hello…Glyph. Yes, please use that name," Kasumi said uncertainly.

"Thank you, M. Garondt. Dr. T'Soni, there are currently 84,324,654,876 unprocessed events, of which an estimated 17,300 require operator attention. Do you wish to—"

"Glyph, authorize Zoe Garondt to level 2, please."

"Please confirm level 2 authorization, Dr. T'Soni."

"Confirm," Liara said, ignoring the questioning look Kasumi shot at her past the drone trying to hover in front of the human woman's face to record biometric data. "Upload procedure manuals to her omni at your convenience."

Liara stepped in the middle of the room, and beckoned for Kasumi to follow suit. "This part is important, Kasumi, remember the endpoint," she said before turning back toward the drone. "Glyph, re-establish permanent connection to the storm walker."

The sphere wobbled up and down in acknowledgement, and for nearly a minute all was silent with the two women standing facing the back wall, standing side by side.

"I know this sounds stupid coming from me, but this is some real cloak and dagger shit you've got going on, Li," Kasumi noted dryly, but not without a hint of amusement. "Seriously, what _is_ this?"

Liara turned to look at her friend. "You said you needed a new job, did you not?"

The asari felt a swell of relief — and a little guilty satisfaction as she observed the question Kasumi was about to ask turn into a realization — when the wall before them was replaced by a blue-tinted three-dimensional projection of a room or cabin and a drell in the middle of it.

"Feron!" Liara exclaimed happily, almost jumping up in the air at the sight of the man.

"_Kisama!_" Kasumi exclaimed at her in a mixture of glee and jovial anger. "QEC? _Kono yaro-u_…" she continued, degenerating into an incoherent string of cursing as she wrapped the fingers of her good hand around Liara's neck and mock-strangled the asari.

"Liara, it is _good_ to see you," Feron greeted them from his side of the projection. "And, ah, your abusive friend…Are you alright there?"

"Yes, Feron, we are fine," Liara replied through laughter as she fought off the smaller woman. "Feron, meet Zoe Garondt. Kasumi, meet Feron."

The drell seemed nonplussed, but waved his hand in greeting since Liara did not seem to have a problem with the woman being there. Kasumi responded in kind, having given up her physical assault and settling for staring at the two alternately.

"Are you safe, Feron?"

"Yes, thank you for the warning. It seems there was some interest in the previous location indeed. I'm currently on Niacal, and don't expect problems although I will probably try to move and find a more permanent base soon. You may be happy to know that Thessia seemed to be better off than I expected."

"That is welcome news, thank you. I hope we can now get some information from there…"

"I can arrange that."

Liara smiled and stepped up to the projection, laying her hand down where Feron's shoulder would have been if he was physically present. A small smile crept up on the drell's lips, too.

"It seems we have much to do, Feron. I…cannot promise my full efforts for some time, I am afraid to say. At least not until Shepard is well, and perhaps not even then. That is why I am inviting Kasumi to assist us."


	27. Chapter 26

_A/N: Looks like my immediate time crunch is easing up a little, so that's good. Also had time to copyedit chapters 1–3 a little; there're no story changes, so you're not missing anything, but they read a bit better now — especially if you first read them back in May._

* * *

"I remember you now, from Hagalaz," Kasumi said, her head tilted slightly to the side as she looked the drell over. His facial markings had seemed familiar enough immediately, the red of the chin and the blue of the neck a fairly rare combination in her experience, but it took her a moment to place the now much healthier-looking, even handsome face. The man had gained a little weight, too, which struck her as odd, though she couldn't quite say why. "You were on the _Normandy_ for a few hours after they rescued you."

"Yes," Feron said, nodding politely, his dark eyes focused on her alone. "I thought it would've been better to stay hidden, but Liara insisted I see the ship's doctor."

"Need I remind you that Dr. Chakwas found a serious infection that might have spread to your lungs and heart if left untended?" the asari interjected with a smidgeon of reprimand, briefly glancing up from whatever she was doing with her omni.

"You were right, as you tend to be, Liara," the drell readily admitted, with a nearly imperceptible wave of hesitancy tightening his posture the tiniest bit, his confident manner becoming just a touch more taut. "But as…Zoe here proves, it may still have been better to stay planetside."

"I hardly consider that a reasonable tradeoff, Feron! In any case, I feel it would have seemed strange had I not freed the friend I purported to be seeking…On balance, I believe that it aided in establishing that the ship was merely a prison, not the Broker's personal craft…as Zoe here _also_ proves."

"She's got you there," Kasumi added helpfully. "It was very convincing."

"Well, be that as it may," Feron conceded, "it's indeed me. Nice to see you again, Zoe. I wish I could say these were better circumstances—they are in a way, I suppose, but _good_ doesn't really seem to be appropriate in this situation," he added, winning a smile from Kasumi before falling silent for a few uncomfortable seconds.

Liara persistently ignored the two, seemingly lost to the world and oblivious to their expectant looks, preoccupied as she was with the wealth of data rushing into the systems to fill the void left by their weeklong exile.

"So, ah, how is she?" the drell asked finally, clearing his throat and nodding toward the bed behind Liara and Kasumi. "I understood from the reports that she was well enough, but I'm not quite sure whether to trust them—war propaganda isn't exactly a new concept, and nobody's actually seen hide nor hair of her after that video with the krogan and—wait… Was that _you_?"

"Yes," Kasumi admitted, slightly flustered. "I'd appreciate it if—"

"Oh, not to worry. Must have confused you with some other human woman. Both of you have dark hair, and so on. You know how it is, all humans look alike," the drell said, his expression unchanged, but with a conspiratorial amusement in his voice.

"Shepard is quite well, Feron," Liara spoke up in turn, shifting to the side to offer a better view, "thank you for asking. She was not injure— wounded badly, by her standards. She should be healed enough to be allowed to awake soon."

Feron merely nodded as Liara turned back to face the projection and returned to her omni-tool.

Kasumi wondered if it was possible that the asari truly was unaware of the number of people left lovelorn in her wake. The thief had always been very good at reading body language — it came with being good at what she did — but she hardly knew the man, let alone his mannerisms. If _she_ could read the drell's body language with such ease, as unfamiliar with the man and the species as she was, she couldn't imagine Liara didn't see it too. The asari seemed completely oblivious, however. Kasumi had seen her share of manipulators and seductresses, for whom such play on emotions was sustenance, but Liara certainly hadn't struck her as one even before the she had glimpsed her inner self in the Meld. Perhaps the shades of uncertainty and self-doubt she'd felt creeping around the direct emotions were powerful enough to blind the asari to positive attention—

"Glyph, please collate information about Tuchanka and the Krogan DMZ for the past rolling 60 standard hours," Liara instructed the small drone, tearing Kasumi from her musings. "Feron, divert anything you can to process data about the salarians and Annos Basin in particular—"

"A step ahead of you there, Liara," Feron broke in, holding up his hand to pause the asari. "I've already been compiling information on the salarians for a few days. I was getting some reports from…" he trailed off, hesitating, eyes flicking to Kasumi.

"She's with us, Feron," Liara said firmly, her eyes intent on the drell. "If she wishes to be, that is," she added, turning to face the erstwhile thief.

A solemn nod was the best Kasumi could do, her throat suddenly tight, her heart aflutter, her earlier glee about the revelation precariously teetering on the edge of dread. _The Shadow Broker, Keiji, the __**Broker**__._ The power in her hands…even if she was to merely assist. It terrified her as much as it excited her. As careful as she had always been, the Broker had never failed to impress her with the amount of information he—she?—had managed to obtain on her. It was an incredible privilege to have. She could do almost _anything_ with just a scrap of the data she would have access to—

"Yes, you're right of course. I'm sorry, Zoe," Feron apologized, turning his head to the human and nodding deeply in a gesture of contrition. "I'm not used to…anyone else."

"Understandable," Kasumi said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"With that settled," Liara said approvingly, but with a final meaningful look cast at Feron as she turned back to the hologram, "you were saying you had already aggregated some salarian data?"

"Yes," Feron replied with a nod, and folded his hands behind his back. "The tiers started reporting a few days ago that a significant number of salarian contacts—and even some agents—were leaving for Sur'Kesh, or outright disappearing. I diverted some resources to see if I could find out anything more about that. I also received your last lowcrypt message just a few hours ago, and set it to do secondary collation on Tuchanka while I rested."

"And?"

"…And, I haven't had the time to review the results," Feron admitted sheepishly, causing Kasumi to hold back a titter as he shifted his weight like a schoolboy. "You just woke me when you called."

Liara turned to Kasumi, her expression of a melancholy amusement. "This is why we need you. Being the Shadow Broker is far more than a full-time job for a single person. We could only barely keep up with the network when I was on the _Normandy_ and on Mars… Now, even with the communications re-established, I am afraid that I have found myself selfish enough that I shall not be able to wrest myself away from her side," she continued, unnecessarily gesturing toward Shepard, "and it seems that as the war did not wait for us, neither does peace…"

"Y'know, Li, I think that's a perfectly good reason not to devote all your waking time to this," Kasumi said, bringing her hand to the asari's shoulder and seeking out the drell's eyes, invoking a compliant nod from the man. "Not to mention you're a celebrity now! _Actual_ gentleman thieves are pretty rare, messieurs Raffles and Lupin notwithstanding."

"Goddess. Please do not remind me of it."

"A celebrity?" Feron asked, confused.

"It turns out that being the main squeeze of the Savior of the Galaxy rubs some of that fame on you," Kasumi supplied, playfully nudging the asari with her shoulder. "Not to mention her own less clandestine achievements. I don't think there's a single soldier in Sol who doesn't know her now!"

"I do not think it quite that—"

"The only reason _you_ don't notice it is because what little you get out of here, you walk everywhere looking at your toes or your omni!" Kasumi declared with a wry smile.

"Ah, I see," Feron interjected, "I was afraid that there might be some repercussions from all the pictures and video that they've been showing—although not quite this soon."

"What?" Liara squeaked.

"You're on the news, like, _all the time_, Li," Kasumi agreed with a nod.

"I— I see," the asari said uncertainly. "I was rather hoping this…enthusiasm…would be limited to this ship."

"I don't think that's going to happen, Li, you really gotta get used to it. But, if you think _you're_ going to have problems adjusting," Kasumi said with a mischievous grin spreading on her face, "just imagine when _Shepard_ wakes up!"

"Oh, _Goddess_."

To Kasumi's surprise, Feron laughed out loud at the asari's squeal of anguish; a deep, raspy, infectious chuckle. "It _is_ good to see you, Liara. It's been awful solitary here. We'll figure something out… Bringing in Zoe was a good idea. This gives us a lot more options."

"You are right, of course," Liara said, straightening back up and some confidence shining through in her voice again. "So, we still have little information on Tuchanka—Glyph seems to think it will have preliminary collation done within the hour. Did you discover _anything_ about the salarians?"

"Give me a moment, I'll get back to the workstation."

As the drell turned and strode toward a doorway in the back of the projected room, Liara instructed for Kasumi to adjust their less sophisticated projection setup 90° so that rather than the remote end occupying the entire back section and the capture pointing toward the other end with Shepard's bed, the entire setup was confined to the back half of the room. Feron's end would be shown on side with the door, and the capture perimeter encompassed the half with Liara's desk and the equipment.

"Look over the manuals Glyph sent you," Liara said as Kasumi maneuvered the capture arrays toward the work desk the asari had plopped down in front of, "they contain enough information that you should be able to have your omni and computer systems linked with sufficient encryption capabilities—but only at short distances. The protocols are very sensitive to that, which is both a blessing and a curse."

"Oh, I see you got me the room nearby just so my services would be near enough, not because you actually _want_ me around?"

"You are not going to trick me twice with that," Liara replied without looking away from the monitors, a smile curling up a corner of her mouth where Kasumi could see it. "This close to the previous success, at least."

"Next time, Li, next time," Kasumi grinned back. "I'll read the docs. I assume that I can connect to the galactic extranets through this, in addition to the Broker network?"

"Yes. The actual request is dispersed via an array far more complex than I could ever hope to understand; it makes it essentially untraceable, but I have noticed that it is frustratingly slow at times. It will usually be better to go through the Broker network instead…it is almost always up to date, and it will pull in external resources as it needs. It is no faster in reality, but I enjoy the illusion."

Kasumi chuckled at the asari as the bluish tint cast on the white walls of the room flickered for a few seconds before disappearing altogether. As Kasumi turned around toward the wall, the projection flashed back into life. Feron had moved to some type of an office space, one lined with almost as many clusters and screens as Liara's office on the _Normandy_ had been. He was sitting on an ergonomic-looking chair—surely made to adapt to the user's measures and the current usage—looking rather more comfortable than he had been earlier. The entire space looked quite well-appointed, just as the lounge had.

"Is it a ship that you're on, Feron?" Kasumi asked, suddenly curious. "It's not like a huge secret space station somewhere, is it?"

"No," the drell replied with a chuckle. "This is indeed a ship—a _wonderful_ one, at that, if I may say so myself."

"Feron does have a talent for luxury, I discovered," Liara supplied from the desk.

"I was going to say that it looked nice enough that I might have had a professional interest in it in a previous life," Kasumi grinned. "What are the specs?"

As Feron was rattling off details to the attentive Kasumi like a proud father, Liara suddenly sprang up from the desk and walked over to Kasumi. The asari brought the projection from her omni up so that they could both see it.

"…What is it?" Feron asked, interrupting his description of the ship's interior design and leaning forward.

"Admiral Shepard—"

"The Admiral is our Shepard's mother," Kasumi clarified, seeing Feron's eyes flicker in confusion.

"…Right, yes," Liara said with a nod, "Admiral Shepard…Hannah…says that Major Kirrahe, of the salarian forces here in Sol, suspects that the _salarians_ have attacked Tuchanka."

The three fell silent. Feron rested his elbows on his knees with slow, deliberate moves, and looked down between his clasped hands. Liara reached back for the saddle chair without taking her eyes off the data streams, fumbling around until her hand happened on it. She pulled the chair close, and sat down to tap on her omni.

"It sounds reasonable," Kasumi offered uncertainly. "Or, you know, it sounds _logical_. Unreasonable, but logical."

"I agree," Feron said, looking up at Liara from under his brow.

"Yes, it does," Liara agreed with a little curt nod mostly to herself, and turned her eyes to Feron. "Start cross-referencing the salarian and krogan data. Perhaps we can find some common patterns to corroborate the major's suspicion."

Feron nodded and pushed himself back into a sit with a groan. He swung the chair around and pulled up a half-dozen HI screens to start processing the data, muttering to himself—about stupid, short-sighted salarians the best that Kasumi could decipher.

"How are you with data analysis?" Liara asked behind her.

Kasumi turned around to face the asari, who was beckoning Glyph over. "I've never tried, so I assume I'm horrible at it," Kasumi said, apologetically.

"Maybe you won't be all that bad," Liara said with a small smirk, and turned to the drone. "Glyph, input from Feron's feeds, reduce with my analysis, and prompt input from Zoe. Verbose assistive mode," she added as an afterthought.

"I— what?"

"Sometimes the organic brain is still better than the best silicon brain," Liara said, her smirk widening into a warm smile. "Glyph needs some help, some _intuition_, to make sense of the data. It will walk you through the process—and you should not worry. I shall go through the same data in the event that anything is missed," she added. "I believe you will do well, though.

"If you feel uncertain about yourself, go sit with Shepard. Her intuition was always so good…uncanny, truly. It never let us down," the asari said sounding almost wistful…until Kasumi saw a flicker of mischief. "Maybe some of it will rub off on you."


	28. Chapter 27

The information flooded in at an incredible pace, despite Glyph's reassurances that it was throttling it to allow Kasumi to review each datum. She had four interfaces open, her fingers dancing between each, discarding pieces with small flicks, and combining or merging them into various parts, her structure map a meter deep and reaching a good meter above her head and to each side already. With Liara's setup taking at least twice the amount of space in the corner, Kasumi _had_ moved her HIs over to the empty wall next to the bed, with a cheerfully hollered promise not to rub any parts of Shepard on herself.

Glyph had quickly determined the visual representation produced the best response in her—and informed her of it, causing Liara and Feron to chuckle at her indignation…but it did seem to be correct. She could visualize the connections far better than merely think about them, and the adaptive interface allowed her to arrange the relevant information as she wished, and to apply various reductive or combinatorial filter chains—usually with Glyph's helpful suggestions—to the individual or combined data to produce new intermediary results. She didn't really feel like she had any idea what she was doing, but the VI kept feeding her data—anything from recorded fleet movements to where a particular dalatrass had gone to dinner—and Liara hadn't bonked her on the head yet, so she felt she wasn't at least actively _harming_ the effort.

Two of the more promising things she got a lot of data for were the climatological and epidemiological monitoring efforts from Tuchanka, and various recordings from ships that had visited Annos Basin or Tuchanka in the days before the respective relays went silent. She had just set up a process to cross-reference and merge the recordings to try to get a good overall picture of all ship movements in and around the systems, when a piece of information that she thought she'd already discarded popped back in from the data queue. On second look, it wasn't the _same_ document—this had come through as a part of her search for information about the salarian STG—but a pair of names caught her attention. She quickly reverted the document she'd rejected earlier, and instructed Glyph to pause all other processing apart from the ship recordings, to dig deeper into this connection.

"Li, do we know a Maelon…Heplorn? This says he worked with Mordin, but there's little information available."

"Yes," the asari said, pausing her own work and swinging her chair around to face Kasumi, "Shepard sho— …Told me about it. He is the man who did the initial research on the cure, though I am not certain whether the Broker database has much information on him except for the bounty on his head. This is something I will not like, is it not?"

"Probably. He's dead. What bounty?"

"The krogan were displeased with Maelon's failure to finish the cure…there was a price on his head, at least until the cure was finally synthesized."

"Seems unlikely it would've been the krogan. It initially got flagged in the general salarian data as an anomalous event but I didn't think much of it—it's from Omega. He was found dead just over a week ago at," Kasumi recounted, glancing back at the data sheet, "at some clinic—ah, his own clinic—and the authorities there, if one can use that word of whatever Cerberus goons run the place now, chalked it up as a robbery. Almost all krogan would have been on Tuchanka or Palaven at that point, and if you'll allow me to stereotype, the hit doesn't really seem krogan-style."

"No," Feron agreed over his shoulder, "it doesn't. Still, it could have been any other merc. Nobody would've known what the hit was for, probably. Or, hell, it could even have _been_ a robbery. It's probably not a bad idea to try to exhaust that angle though."

"True," Liara agreed, and turned back toward Kasumi. "Could you find the people who worked in Mordin's project on Sur'Kesh in the last…18 months? And anyone who was involved in the final phase with the Shroud."

"Sure, what am I looking for?"

"Death."

"Oh. …Right."

It took all of twenty minutes to compose and run the analysis when she knew what she needed to find. Ten minutes in, Liara paused her own work and connected to Kasumi's workspace to collaborate with her, and Feron called out that he was shifting to cross-reference events around the cure. Despite the chaos of the war, the data they had was highly suggestive; the number of anomalous deaths and disappearances—before the more wide-spread ones in the last days—told a very clear tale. That, combined with the spacecraft transit analysis…

"Should we tell the Admiral?"

"Yes," Liara replied, tilting her head as she looked at Kasumi from her desk in the corner, "but…?"

"…But we can't tell her directly."

"Right," the asari said with a smile.

"So, what, we gotta route this information to her from some external source?"

"Yes, and I'd go so far as to get the information to someone else entirely," Feron interjected. The drell had left his systems running in the background, and was once again turned to face the room, elbows on knees, neck drooping between hunched shoulders.

"Matriarch Lidanya will already have ordered the military intelligence agencies to look into the matter," Liara mused, her gaze turned to her lap. "We can use that, and inject this information into their information gathering systems. Feron, compile the final packages, and split them between the turians, the humans, and…hm, the volus."

As the drell set to work, a thought occurred to Kasumi. Biting her lip, she timidly glanced at Liara a few times before steeling herself. She took a deep breath.

"Li?"

"What is it?"

"Well…the case against the salarians seems to be solid," Kasumi said, taking a step away from her workspace, and leaning against the foot of the bed. "But I was thinking. Quite a few of the…anomalous deaths, they happened in the Terminus systems. And three on Omega. Or, well, two on and one just outside."

"Perhaps they thought it safer in the Terminus?" Liara asked, tilting herself to the side to lean her elbow on the desk, and resting her head on her hand. "Most of the victims still died on Sur'Kesh or their home planets."

"Sure, but it's a lot of people in a short amount of time, even for the STG—and in a hostile environment, what with Cerberus and the Reapers."

"That is true."

"So…we think whatever Cerberus troops or police happen to be around are either disinterested in aliens getting killed, or just incompetent… But what if that's not the case?"

"You think that it might be Cerberus instead of the salarians?" Liara asked, concern prying her drooping eyelids open.

"No, not instead. In _addition_. What if they're helping the salarians?"

"That…I do not see why—"

"I'm not sure _why_, either…but think about it, Cerberus was _really_ focused on taking out the research facility when you went for, ah, what's she called? …Eve, when you went to get her. For whatever reason, they put a lot of manpower and resources into preventing the cure. We still don't know why they attacked just then, either…"

"…And the salarians were willing to forfeit the alliance because of the cure," Liara picked up the thread from Kasumi. "Perhaps there exists some subset of the salarian government willing to deal with The Illusive Man—or whoever is in charge now," she added, recalling her shameful glee over the news of the man's death.

"That's not _entirely_ implausible, I must admit," Feron agreed from the other side of the room. "I'm not sure what they stand to gain—apart from the obvious—but the pieces _do_ fit."

"Cerberus has always been the weak point of the Broker network," Liara said, pushing herself back upright on her chair, and covering a yawn with her hand. "I am uncertain how much information we will be able to find, but I will create some—"

"Yeah, no," Kasumi said, taking the few steps over to Liara, and laying her hand on the asari's shoulder. "You need to sleep, Li. Like, _really_ need to. As my first act as your underling, I'm ordering you some rest."

Some half-hearted and ineffectual protestations later, Liara seemed satisfied by Kasumi's promise to stay up for another few hours with Feron. The asari bade good night to the drell, and disconnected the projection without severing the QEC connection itself; it was still needed for the data traffic.

Kasumi stayed a few minutes with the asari, trying to get her to unwind a little by chit-chatting about mundane things. They concluded that Vega should be careful of what he wished for, and resolved to see if they could somehow convince the quarians to let them get access to poor Tali, left all alone because of contamination concerns. Kasumi thought she had also managed to convince Liara that, by the recounting of the dinner, she didn't think it was anything to feel embarrassed about. In fact, her own meetings with the in-laws had been rather disastrous in comparison. The asari seemed to take heart, and appeared a little less stressed as she walked Kasumi to the door before stepping over to Shepard's bed to say good-night.

Kasumi couldn't help a small smile as she paused at the door, her hand on the lock mechanism. "I was a little surprised you didn't give me a talk about the responsibility of power, knowing right from wrong, and so on," she said, watching the asari carefully uncover Shepard's hand to clasp it with her own.

"No," Liara said quietly, looking at Kasumi over her shoulder. "I trust you to know what is…_necessary_, and what is not."

Kasumi held the asari's eyes for a few seconds before nodding and stepping out of the cabin.

⁚

⁚

"Thank you for joining us again, Urdnot Grunt," Lidanya said politely. "We hope Urdnot Wrex is doing better?"

"Yes," the krogan replied gruffly as he seated himself in front of the camera in the cabin he was using as his command center. "In a few days, I can finally do some _real_ work instead of these thrice-cursed, stupid mouth-flapping meetings."

"Thank you for asking," he added after a few seconds' silence.

Trying very hard to stifle a chuckle at the krogan's remembrance of his manners, given the gravity of the situation, Hannah turned her head and hid her face behind a datapad until the urge to laugh subsided. That was Eevy's kid alright.

"Someone figure out what's going on, since you wanted me back online?"

"Yes—" both Lidanya and Victus started at the same time, with the asari nodding for the primarch to continue.

"Major Kirrahe," the turian said, nodding presumably in the direction of the salarian on his projection, "presented us with a theory to explain the sudden loss of communications with Tuchanka. We directed the intelligence services to vet the theory, and were able to obtain some corroborating information. At this time, it seems that, ah, the salarians may have attacked Tuchanka in force as soon as the Reaper threat was confirmed to be over. They're possibly engaged in full-scale war. The goal appears to be preventing the genophage cure from being utilized."

Instead of the explosion Hannah—and others, by the look of their postures—had expected, the massive krogan merely ground his teeth together, his shoulders heaving deeply with heavy breaths. His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared as he seemed to gather his thoughts.

Finally, eying the projected figures assembled before him, Grunt spoke in a slow, deliberate voice. "You should round up your salarians before word of this gets out, Kirrahe."

The major seemed alarmed and perturbed as his image was highlighted on Hannah's projection. "I assure you, none of my people would ever support—"

"Yeah, I know," the krogan grunted. "Don't mean you won't get slaughtered by a bunch of krogan who, let's face it, mostly have piss for brains even when they're not enraged beyond all reason."

"…Good point. Thank you, Urdnot Grunt."

"Yeah."

Lidanya, thus far quiet, leaned back in her chair and spoke up. "Yes, I think you are correct. The salarians need to be brought into protective custody. You have been very helpful on the ground, Major Kirrahe, but I think it is best to extract all salarian troops until the situation calms down."

"I understand."

"If these numbers are correct, Major," Bajic interjected, "we have sufficient space on the human ships to temporarily house everyone."

"They are correct for the military, but there are also thousands of civilians on the Citadel and elsewhere. There were even a few civilian salarians on Earth."

Lidanya appeared deep in thought, her voice slightly distracted. "The Major is right. Fully dispersing the population among the ships is possible, but makes it hard to track everyone. On the other hand, there would be enough room on the Citadel, but I doubt we could secure it well enough…"

Hannah cleared her throat. "If I may, Matriarch, I think it might be best to transport everyone to Mars. Lowell is in better shape than most Earth cities large enough to handle the crowd, and it _should not_ strain their resources if we're only—hopefully—dealing in days, not weeks. It's also easy to control access to."

"That sounds reasonable, Admiral," Lidanya agreed with a nod. "Admiral Raan, you might have the most suitable shuttle and small craft fleet to handle the logistics. Would you be able to co-ordinate with the humans and the Major to arrange the details?"

The quarian conferred briefly with her companion, Han'Gerrel, and then nodded. "We have the capacity. I will send channel invites as soon as this meeting is over."

"Good. Admiral Bat," Lidanya continued, addressing the volus commander, "you had thoughts on trying to further ascertain the situation in the affected systems?"

"Yes _–hiss–_ Matriarch. We have _–hiss–_ not really tried to breach the _–hiss–_ relays for fear of adverse _–hiss–_ results," the volus said, punctuated by the sound of his respirator. "The ships that have _–hiss–_ gone missing after having gone through _–hiss–_ the relay suggest that comm buoys are probably _–hiss–_ disabled, and the enemy was either destroying or disabling the ships immediately _–hiss–_ before they can realign their communications to target the relay _–hiss–_ directly."

Admiral Bat's plan wasn't particularly ingenious, but Hannah approved of its simple robustness. A squadron of drone ships would be launched simultaneously, in a dispersed formation, their comms attuned to transmit continuously directly to the relay. Annos Basin could be targeted from three relays, reducing the possibility of sabotage before entry. The Krogan DMZ unfortunately only had one active entry point—although better secured—so they would need to try for a higher concentration. The number of craft in a wide pattern and fudging the computations to cause excess drift beyond that should ensure that all of the drones could not be destroyed before a few of them had time to transmit some data.

"If that does not _–hiss–_ work, then we must consider sending manned craft _–hiss–_ instead. I have faith that this will not _–hiss–_ be necessary."

Lidanya gave the man an appreciative nod. "Very well, Admiral Bat. I believe we have the largest amount of resources available outside Sol, but perhaps civilian parties might have more suitable equipment for this. I trust that you will have someone with insight into that matter, Admiral?"

"Certainly."

"Good. I will forward you the contact details for the asari command for co-ordination. How long do you estimate for readiness?"

"It should be no longer than _–hiss–_ ten hours. Possibly much faster. We will be ready to _–hiss–_ deploy at the word of this esteemed _–hiss–_ consortium."

Grunt bristled, obviously dissatisfied with the pace of things but restraining himself, understanding the logistical problems—_That's not very charitable_, Hannah cut off her line of thought, reprimanding herself. Perhaps if everyone stopped believing the worst of the krogan, they'd integrate better—

"Excellent. Goddess, I hope that we will be able to obtain some clarity on this matter," Lidanya said with an uncharacteristic flash of concern. "For now, I believe we have a plan of action…Admiral Bajic, the humans will co-ordinate with the Mars authorities to prepare them?"

"Already in progress," the distracted Bajic said without lifting her gaze from her omni.

"Urdnot Grunt, I feel I must thank you again for your discretion in this matter," Lidanya said, standing up and saluting in the asari manner. "Admiral Raan will contact you once the evacuation is sufficiently advanced that it is safe. You may broach the issue with the krogan then. I will co-ordinate with the media to ensure that the information does not leak at least within Sol until we are prepared. We will make a public preliminary statement once the krogan have been informed."

"Lidanya," the krogan said curtly, and disconnected.

The matriarch nodded, indicating the meeting was at an end. "We will meet again in 6 hours unless something happens. …Admiral Shepard, would you mind staying on for a moment? I have something to discuss with you."


	29. Chapter 28

"General Vakarian?"

The turian in front of the HI spun around slowly, letting the bluish light bleed to illuminate his ragged, pensive profile. "I'd prefer Garrus, Reegar, and will accept no less than Vakarian."

"You were expecting me?" the quarian asked from the doorway, casting his eyes around the room for a better light source.

"The Primarch explained the situation," Vakarian replied carefully, gazing out the door to ensure nobody was in earshot. "Figured Raan would be smart enough to send you. I've already compiled the locations of all salarian personnel we know of in this area, as well as those evacuated to planetside hospitals."

Kal nodded and gestured toward the room. "Thank you, that'll speed things up. May I—"

"Actually, I'd like to get out of this dank cell for a while, if you don't mind walking with me?" the turian interrupted, already standing up and reaching to gather up his things.

"Sure," Kal replied with a nod, and stepped back out through the doorway.

He walked up the five crumbling stone steps that took him up from the half-basement that acted as Vakarian's office to street level where he had left his squad waiting. The soldiers—65 all told—were still standing in formation on one side of the wide thoroughfare now mostly lined with rubble and molten gobs of metals, plastics, and glass.

He had anticipated that it would take slightly longer to compile the information they needed, and had planned with his XO and pilot Mas'Ibhan for the squad to possibly take an early lunch here. With the information readily available, but Vakarian wanting to discuss something, Kal caught the XO's eye and jerked his chin to the side to indicate for the man to take himself and the troops to the dextro field mess huddled in a half-collapsed two-story building a little further down the street.

As the men and women fell out and strode toward the mess, chattering as they did, Kal examined the fence or balustrade lining the squat stairs he had ascended. It seemed to be of a rusted metal, shedding black paint in huge flakes as he ran his finger on it. Miraculously, it was still attached and intact apart from a few singed parts where it had been receiving fire, and the more mundane predations of time. He gave it a few good tugs and, satisfied that it would hold his weight, leaned his hips back onto the railing. Taking the weight off his right leg was a blessing. He did not feel it fair to complain of the small scrape he'd received, not with the number of seriously wounded, and because that husk had only gotten him through his own stupidity and tiredness, but he couldn't deny it had caused him great discomfort in the last few days.

Vakarian hadn't emerged yet, and as Kal glanced down to the doorway over his shoulder, he only saw the light from the HIs flicker as the turian moved around inside. Short, unintelligible bits of conversation drifted in and out of the doorway. Satisfied with the respite from walking, even if it meant having to wait, he turned down his audio receptors and closed his eyes in an attempt to tune out the world, and concentrate on the start of a poem he had managed to construct. He only had three verses, but it was the first thing he thought captured even the smallest facet of how he felt. Upon that realization, his mind was drifting away, considering whether he could try to describe it in its different aspects rather than the entirety at once. It seemed too much for words, all at once, but perhaps smaller…

And then another feeling crept in, a poisonous whisper that told him it was all for naught…he wouldn't have the courage to present it, anyway—he wouldn't even have the courage to _go_ to the _Tonbay_ despite his elaborate plans in the sleepless nights to accidentally happen there. He would not have it delivered, he wouldn't even send it anonymously, the coward that he—

"Don't tell me you came here by yourself, Reegar," the turian said from his side.

With a start, Kal normalized his sensory inputs and, flustered, pointed his fingers in the direction of the mess. "No, I've got a full squad, ten shuttles in all. I sent them to fill their stomachs while we sort this out."

"Ah, yes. Food. Come," Vakarian replied, and beckoned Kal to follow.

They walked a few blocks in a companionable silence until Vakarian broached the logistics of the evacuation when taking a turn to another fairly large thoroughfare, perpendicular to the first. Despite concerted clean-up efforts, the command area wasn't much better than on any of Kal's previous visits. The two dozen or so buildings that were in any way intact from the fighting had been shored up, and temporary structures and scaffolds had been erected around and between them to provide further room and shelter. Most of the top brass had already relocated to orbit; with communications and scanners functional, it was far more convenient to organize efforts from up high. Vakarian was one of the very few commanders who still insisted on staying on the ground. By all accounts, he'd been doing an exceptional job managing the rescue efforts around the London area, but—

"It's strange to be on a planet that actually lives very close to the Galactic Time cycle," the turian grumbled as the pair had exhausted the business at hand and approached the terminus of the street, a small square or park expanding into a walkway along the river that went through the city. "It _should_ be easier, but somehow the lack of time drift just gets me constantly."

Kal chuckled in sympathy, he had found it hard to adjust to himself. "Palaven's days are also longer, aren't they?"

"Yes, they're a quarter again a Galactic Day."

"Did you know we _started_ with ship time kept the same as it was on Rannoch? At some point fairly early on it was decided that we should adopt the Galactic Day instead…this'll create some interesting problems settling back to Rannoch. The days are even slightly longer than Palaven's," he added by way of explanation.

The turian flicked his mandibles in an amused manner as the two came to a halt at the low wall lining the river. "You planning to go there? Rannoch, I mean."

"I'll have to go visit for a short while at least, _keelah se'lai_. I didn't have the chance to see it before we deployed here," Kal said, gazing at the debris floating by in the river. "I'm not sure about staying…I'm not going to retire for a while, at any rate."

"I'd imagine it to need a bit of adjustment, all of you having lived on the ships all your lives?"

"I don't doubt that, Vakarian. I suspect quite a few people will be drawn back to the stars when all is said and done. I might be one. Never known anything but the ships and a bunch of planets I got drop-shipped on. Besides…I'm not used to making decisions for myself."

That elicited another expression of amusement from the turian. "Perhaps you'll find someone to make decisions for you, Reegar. Or have you already?"

Flustered, Kal tried to laugh his embarrassment off, and trailed into a brief silence engulfed in his thoughts. "How is your crew doing?" he asked finally. "I haven't heard much beyond the official news."

"I…ah, I don't really know," Vakarian replied, a somber expression replacing his earlier mirth. "I've not really…"

"No?" Kal asked, unable to hide his surprise.

The turian let his head drop between his shoulders, his voice low. "I'm not sure they really want to see me."

Kal couldn't really believe that the others would shun the man, but did not want to push further, not knowing the situation. He settled on a sympathetic grunt, and let silence descend once again.

"You should go up there, though," the turian offered. "I'm sure they'd welcome you."

Perhaps he should…it would be nice to see them, anyway, and it would maybe allow him to—

"How's Tali?"

"She, ah…" Kal started lamely, trying to settle himself. "Tali'Zorah is healing fine, still confined to bed though. Admiral Raan says she's past the hard part…she's just stuck on the _Tonbay_ because there are still others worse off with exposure, so they can't really move her."

"I haven't heard from her," Vakarian said with a hint of sadness.

His expression brightening slightly, Kal turned toward the man. "Oh! No, don't… Don't worry about that. Tali'Zorah hasn't really been able to talk to _anyone_. See, they brought all the high exposure victims to the _Tonbay_ and a few other ships—turns out that the ship had sustained significant damage to its communications systems. There's an extremely high amount of interference throughout the hull, and they haven't been able to really start repairs because they don't want to risk the exposure…"

"That's…unfortunate. She doesn't do very well without extranet access."

"I…understand this is the case. Still, Admiral Raan assures me that the last patients should be out of danger in a day or two…they can relax the quarantine protocols, then."

The turian merely grunted. The two stood there watching the river flow by until Mas'Ibhan called to summon Kal back.

⁚

⁚

"Mother! Mother! I excavated a relic!"

"Did we not discuss this?" Benezia asked, looking up from her work as Liara bounded from the woods towards the bench she was sat on. "You are not to dig here. This is a park. And look at yourself, your dress is ruined."

Liara came to a skidding halt at the bench, and looked down at herself, flushing deeply. She was covered in a reddish mud almost to her knees, leaves and little sticks plastered all over. Her dress—green, where her mother's was resplendent yellow and white—was torn in three places at the hem, and as she tugged at it, sand and dirt fell in great piles. "I am sorry about the dress, Mother, but I really did find one!"

Raising a brow, her mother reached forward to brush dirt off Liara's cheeks. "What is it that you found, exactly?" she asked, not unkindly, as she brought her hand up to stroke Liara's head, plucking stray leaves from between her fringes.

"A _relic_! You _must_ come see!"

Benezia watched her curiously for a few seconds before nodding. She put her work down onto the bench and draped her shawl on top of it as she straightened to her full height and offered her hand to Liara. "Show me."

Liara reached up to clasp the three outmost digits in her small hand, and started back toward her digsite with her mother in tow. Navigating into the copse of ashy white tree trunks, she looked for the trail of small piles she had made of the three-pointed, crimson _lepae_ leaves. Twenty whole piles she had had to assemble to keep her bearings, but the route took her back to the dig as surely as if she already had the omni-tool her mother had concealed away for her birthday.

She sensed that her mother had not really believed her until they stepped to the clearing. As they laid eyes on the hole, a good meter deep, she felt the fingers tighten around her hand. The object lay down in the middle, just where she had found it. Barely able to contain her excitement, Liara grinned up at her mother.

"You see? It must be _prothean_!"

"We cannot be sure _what_ that is, Liara," Benezia said apprehensively. "It could even be dangerous."

"It is not dangerous, Mother, it _talks_!"

"It…talks?"

"Yes! And it knows my name! Come!" Liara squealed as she started descending the ladder leading down the side of the excavation.

She settled in front of the squat rectangular box, as she had when she first uncovered it. It was unremarkable, just a dirty white box with some bluish gray inlays and some type of a sensor in the front. She waited until she felt the warmth from her mother's legs at her side, and then waved her palm across the sensor panel.

A blue projection came to life, half a meter tall above the box itself. It flashed through a series of strange buildings and blueprints, and then a strange four-eyed insectoid head which finally dissolved into the shape of an asari. The young woman smiled a sad, furtive smile, and then spoke, her words cut in corrupted sections of the recording. "…Liara T'Soni. …Hope this information …help you in this fight."

"See? It must be a VI that can somehow scan this from my hand so that it is familiar to me, like in _Secrets of the Ancients_!"

Benezia lay her hand on Liara's shoulder, and gracefully knelt down closer to the small image. As mother and daughter watched, the asari spoke of a heroic fight against an impossibly strong enemy, a fight that united all of the galaxy, and yet, finally, all was lost with nothing left but a warning for the future.

"Why is it talking about asari, and quarians, and salarians, and everyone, Mother? I do not understand," Liara asked, turning to her mother in confusion.

Benezia spoke quietly, tears in her eyes. "It is not speaking _to_ you, Little Wing…I think it _is_ you. You lost the fight. It is _you_."

"Come now, you can't stand around here!" a voice boomed from above. "The ceremony is about to start. Clean this up immediately!"

Turning her burning eyes upward, Liara saw the old park warden looming tall over her dig, filling it back with the dirt she had painstakingly removed with her own hands, rivulets of dirt cascading into great streams pooling at the bottom.

Her mother stood up, and gently pulled Liara to her feet and lifted her out of the dig. She removed her pale yellow scarf and wrapped it around Liara's neck, tugging the girl down closer to her as she did. Fussing with the scarf with one hand, she brought the fingers of the other to her lips, and then gently pressed them onto Liara's. "The warden is right…we must make you presentable for the ceremony. You should go with her, so that you are not late. I must stay."

The warden tugged at Liara's arm, pulling her toward a commotion down below the hill her dig site lay upon. As she desperately and unsuccessfully fought to escape the vice-like grip of the matriarch, she only got one last look at her mother pulling dirt from the sides into the dig with her.

"Where are you taking me? Why can Mother not come?" she screamed up at her harrier, struggling against the impossible strength of the turian's arms.

"She's gone, Liara," Garrus said simply, unrelentingly walking her toward the bottom of the hill where, in the half-circle of the clearing, hundreds of people were sat in neat rows before a shape draped in white velvet and nestled between two saplings at the edge of the wood. "She's gone."

They strode forward, through the crowd, Liara's protestations waning as familiar faces turned to watch her. Tali fell in beside her, guiding her to the three empty seats in the first row. As she took her place, Tali and Garrus remained standing before her, heads deeply bowed, both in white cowls and golden sashes to match hers. Liara nodded, and they slowly turned and stepped to the velvet. Solemnly they pulled it down, carefully folding the cloth in their arms, revealing the statue carved into Shepard's likeness—

—She awoke with her breath caught in her throat, her thin silken sheet tangled around her legs and body. She fought herself loose, and stumbled out of the cot and to the bedside, desperately reaching for anything, something, finding her breath only when her hand found Shepard's under the blankets. In the dark, she fumbled with the railing of the bed with numb fingers until she found the lock to collapse it to the side. With fevered urgency she crawled up on the bed and snuggled her body tightly against Shepard's, head burrowed in the curve of her neck, smudged tears drying on the woman's skin.


	30. Chapter 29

She awoke to the smell of skin. _Her_ skin. Sleepily, she nuzzled into it, ran her nose along the cords of muscle at the side of _her_ neck, laid a kiss _just there_, coaxing her lover awake. Slowly, as the warm body next to hers lay still and unmoving but for slow, steady breaths, the circumstances returned to her and she flinched away. In recoil, she pushed her upper body off the bed, frantically scouring underneath herself for cords, tubes, and catheters she might have squashed in her senseless terror. As sleep left her and memory strengthened, her panic subsided with the recollection of unconscious hands pawing everything aside as she fought her way onto the bed in the dark of night.

Her hand raised to her breast, she allowed her breath to settle in relief, and ducked down to kiss Shepard on the cheek and on the line of her jaw. Reluctantly, she rolled to her side and sat upright on the bed, feet dangling off the ground, hands leaning on her knees. Scolding herself for her grave foolishness and offering thanks to whatever auspices had kept her from causing harm, she ran her fingers over her omni to awaken it as she let herself fall off the edge of the bed and onto the warm, hard floor. "Glyph, status report subsequent to previous," she instructed the bobbing drone as she padded across the room to retrieve her shirt and trousers.

"If I may, Dr. T'Soni, I recommend postponing the report until you have received your visitor."

:

:

Miranda tapped the intercom as she reached to the door, the occupancy indicator in the door panel confirming her suspicion that Liara would likely be in the cabin.

{Yes?}

"It's…Dr. Lawson. May I come in?"

{Give me a minute.}

She took a step back from the door, crossing her arms lightly and glancing at the data feeds on her omni. Had it been anyone else inside, she might have asked if she could come back later—but one of the qualities she most liked in Liara was that 'a minute' meant just that. Sure enough, moments later the panel switched to show an unlocked state within, saving Miranda from having to continue feigning interest in her omni to avoid enduring small talk with the young and rather obviously too eager guardsman, and the distrustful looks from his asari colleague. Quickly clearing the identification protocols of the external lock, she entered the calm of the room with an inward sigh of relief.

Liara was preoccupied with unnecessarily adjusting her outfit in her work corner—it could as well have been tailored specifically for the asari, and seemed none worse for the wear—leaving Miranda free to step directly up to Shepard without idle pleasantries. Methodically advancing through her checklist and comparing monitoring data against earlier trends it took her a moment to notice the lowered railing and indentations on the far side of the bed. Hearing the asari shuffle closer, Miranda turned to look at her with her eyebrow raised.

Liara glanced down bashfully, purple creeping up her cheeks and crest. "I…had a bad dream. I hope I didn't cause any—"

"No," Miranda said with a little shake of her head as she examined the asari's reaction. "Had you blocked _this_ one, that could have been an issue…but only if the warning chime didn't wake you. It _does_, however, explain the small anomaly in brain activity nine hours ago, and the other one just a few minutes before I got here."

"Anomaly?" the asari repeated, worry infusing her voice.

"Nothing to be concerned about. Just an elevated level of activity for a few seconds, probably simply caused by the stimulus of your touch."

"Oh…I see."

"I've actually got some good news on that front," Miranda continued as she finished her examinations, satisfied with the progress she saw. The abdomen scanned well, the broken bones were almost mended with only tiny hairlines showing, and the skin under the bandaging was starting to be ready for external exposure.

Liara craned her neck forward, eyes wide, her voice lowering almost to a whisper. "You do?"

"The _actual_ doctors are in agreement that we can start bringing her out of sedation starting today," Miranda said, taking a few precognitive steps around the corner of the bed and toward the asari.

Slumping down right into the support of Miranda's expectant arms, Liara closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. "_Goddess_…thank you," she mumbled as she found her legs, clasping Miranda's forearms and squeezing them tightly. "But…what about Hannah?"

"Hann…Admiral Shepard? What about her?"

"She has been posted to the relay, Charon! What if she cannot return in time?" Liara asked, her inexplicably intense concern over the matter nullifying Miranda's initial instinct of brushing it off as a minor and unavoidable inconvenience.

"I…well, we _could_ delay it, I suppose…I'd have to consult the doctors. The anesthesiologist would probably prefer to bring her out as soon as possible, but I don't think there's actual harm in waiting. It would be best if the Admiral could get here in time instead, though."

Liara frowned and bit her lip as she mulled the question, glancing back and forth between the floor and Shepard. "Perhaps she can. We shall ask her," she said, finally releasing Miranda's arms as she turned to stride over to her desk.

Miranda stowed the patient datapad back into its slot and continued to the other side of the bed to lift the safety railing back up. Satisfied with the neatness of the bedding after a few smoothing tugs, she grabbed a chair off the back wall, and pulled it with her to the end of the bed just in time to take a seat as a life-sized Admiral Shepard came into being in the less-cluttered back corner.

"Liara!" the admiral greeted happily, her expression darkening ever so slightly as her eyes fell on Miranda. "…And Dr. Lawson. Is everything alright? I've got a few minutes."

Interpreting an anxious glance from Liara as an invitation to take the reins, Miranda straightened slightly in her chair. "Everything's fine, Admiral. I was just telling Liara that we can start bringing Shep— Eevy out of sedation today."

"That's wonderful news!" the admiral said, her severe expression instantly dissolving into a beaming smile that even tugged the corner of Miranda's mouth upwards.

"Are you able to return here by…when is it, Miranda?" Liara asked, fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

"It, ah, I…We can't do it immediately like with nor… other people. The amount of drugs it takes to keep her out, we need to gradually ease the dosage to avoid the worst withdrawal reactions. Based on this programming suggestion for the doser, it looks like the anesthesiologist has planned a timeframe of at least 18 hours. Realistically, the dosage at that point—and another 12 hours from that—should keep her sedated, but I suspect that she'll be coming out sooner rather than later. Are you able to return to Earth space by then?"

"That sounds good to me. Best take it safe and slow," the admiral opined. "I'm afraid I can't be there for at least another four days the way things are looking, though."

"We should wait, then," Liara declared with a sharp nod.

"What do you mean?"

"Liara would prefer to delay waking her until such time that you can be here, Admiral. We can probably push it back—"

"What? Whatever for?" the admiral exclaimed incredulously, and turned toward Liara, head tilted and her expression a mix of bemusement and concern. "Liara, _sweetie_… You don't have to wait for _me_!"

The asari seemed abashed, her voice tremulous. "Are you su—"

"Of course! Wake her up, Dr. Lawson. I'll see her in a couple days—or sooner, through the miracle of this here communication device!"

"Very well, ma'am," Miranda said with a chuckle.

"In fact," the admiral continued, "it might be better this way. Lidanya just asked me about her last night. The command is very…eager to have her in front of the cameras as soon as possible, especially with this current situation with Tuchanka. _I'd_ rather she have a few days to rest at least. Maybe this'll give us some cover in that regard."

"It might," Miranda offered carefully, though she didn't think it was likely they'd succeed. "I'll try to circumspectly raise the point of the importance of rest with the other doctors…maybe they'll get the hint. Still, if they've got someone actively watching her…"

"I understand, Dr. Lawson. It's worth trying, anyway."

"Certainly. If it doesn't work, we're no worse off."

"Exactly. Thank you for your efforts again, doctor," the admiral said with a smile. "I've got to rush into a meeting, but I'm sure you two will keep me appraised of the situation? Liara, I'll call…Liara?"

"What? Oh, yes…call me later on tonight whenever you are available!"

With a final smile at Miranda and the distracted Liara, the admiral's image turned and strode away until her hand brushing on an unseen console shut off the projection.

"So…" Miranda probed.

Liara merely nodded before hanging her head and pushing off with her feet, propelling her chair back toward the desk, where she started pulling up displays to cover the entire corner.

"She's fine, Liara."

"I…know," the asari replied, her head turning just a little toward Miranda and with a nearly imperceptible nod, her voice but a whisper. "But I worry."

"Don't," Miranda said a little more sternly than she meant to, causing Liara's shoulders to hunch deeper. "I… Really, my biggest concern is that she'll tear some bandages when she inevitably jumps your bones."

"What?" Liara squeaked, aghast, her head snapping back. "My bones? How…why would she do…what? Can I stop it?"

It took Miranda a good minute to stop laughing at the flustered—and toward the end, indignant—asari even though the reaction was exactly what she'd hoped for. "Ooh, Liara. I'm not sure you could stop it if you wanted to…but I meant that you should _try_ to keep her from…engaging in vigorous activity," she finished with a meaningful look.

"Oh, I see," Liara said, her skin a deepening purple all the way down her neck. "You should not tease me with such…jargon! It sounded like something medical."

"Sorry," Miranda apologized, her sly smile belying the earnestness. "But seriously, try to make sure she actually mostly rests for a day or two at least, so that she gets a feel of how her body's recovering. Actually," she added as a conciliatory afterthought, "are you able to…I dunno, sense her body in that Melding thing?"

"If you mean whether I could feel if she is in pain or straining herself too much, yes."

"That could be very helpful. I trust it won't be a problem for you to be around when she wakes up, even though the window is fairly long? You've got about 14 hours before that, in case you need to get stuff out of the way."

"Nothing could keep me away," Liara replied, her chagrin melting away.

"Good. It's not necessary, of course, but I can't really think of a better way to wake up, myself," Miranda said, standing up and dragging her chair back over to the wall. "I've got the process initiated. The new programming is in the medication doser, so the countdown starts now. You'll probably have much more traffic here than the usual morning rounds and occasional visit from a nurse in the next 24 hours, too. I'll try to get them to stagger it across guard shifts in case we have spies at the door."

"Thank you," Liara said quietly. "Will you be here?"

"I can, if I'm needed. I was actually…" Miranda started, hesitantly, "I was hoping I'd have time to see if I could get some extranet time somehow. It's probably going to be a long search. I'd like to see if I can…"

"Find Oriana?" Liara finished for her.

"Yes," Miranda agreed with a small sigh of relief. _I don't know why I can't just ask…_ "I believe she is safe, at least. I ordered her to stay in space and avoid dallying in any one system for long…but I've not heard from her, of course."

"I…have some limited burst access via the asari command," Liara said, without discernible hesitation or calculation. "If you have any details that you are comfortable giving me about her possible whereabouts, or perhaps a message exchange protocol you have agreed upon…?"

"You'd be able to get that through?"

"Yes. I cannot promise results, of course, but we can try," the asari said with a nod.

It was Miranda's turn to steady herself. Leaning on the railing of the bed, she turned toward Liara, her voice even despite the shiver that ran through her. "That would…I would be grateful. I will forward you some details. Thank you."

"There is no need to thank me, Miranda," Liara said with quietly, but with an intensity that took shape as she rose and padded across the floor to Miranda and laid a hand on her shoulder. "After all that you have done for me, for us. No need."

Miranda found her hand reaching up onto Liara's elbow. She allowed it to linger there for a moment before she nodded to herself and headed for the door.


	31. Chapter 30

_A/N: Thank you for all the kind words in the last few chapters :) I'm back from vacation, normal publishing schedule again. I added a codex/glossary entry about asari naming conventions and related matters; since it's not specifically relevant to this chapter, it's under Chapter 3 (where it's moreso). There's also a tiny bit of background on the T'Sonis and Aria in the entry._

:

:

She hears the rending, turns away from the panel trying to block out the burning light with her arm. _There_, her eyes still far from the center of the sun that has come to be in the middle of the room, she can see the beams and struts cracking, the rips glowing through like veins in the blinding, shuddering, crimson x-ray image that the space has become. The entire Presidium has been straining against the incredible energies as it has tried to contain them, but she can see it won't hold much longer.

_Fuck if I'm going to die __**now**__._

She twists around, ignores the panel with its bloody handprints—there's nothing more she can do, it'll work or not, it will relinquish its hold in time or not. Tries to ignore the pain, presses Anderson's tarnished gold sash tighter into the gaping hole in her stomach, bites deep into her lip to suppress a gasp, tastes the fresh copper, feels the blood trickle down the corner of her mouth, her gorge rising as the torn viscera shifts. She tries the outside comms, already knowing the result for the dead silence it is. With one thought in mind, through blurring vision, she scans her surroundings even as she staggers away from the center console, desperately seeking a way out with the elevator immobilized. Sees the catwalk across a small chasm on the other side of the cavernous room, small drop into a hatchway beyond that, wills her legs to move, one hand clutching the bandage, the other struggling to keep her in balance as her feet land one after another, awkwardly where the fractures running throughout her armor undermine the support they should provide for her tired, struggling legs.

She's cleared the room and nearly on the gangway when all the noise suddenly stops, the light dims, a thought half-formed, another stride half-taken as the crimson light behind her flashes into a brilliance that burns out her eyes. Something lifts her effortlessly into the air, flings her headfirst into the wall above the hatch, crushes her helmet and shoulder against it with force she cannot feel, only hear. Her cheek and collarbone give, but there is no pain when she comes to a halt in a crumpled heap on the floor, the flicker in her optics failing to focus on the gray alloy underneath her, ill-fitting helmet dislodging and rolling off to the side, head on the cool, thrumming surface, a small pool of blood expanding underneath her, stinging in the corner of her eye. The purplish radiance is gone; yellow, white, and blue light flare behind her, reflect off her surroundings. She tries to get up, but can't move, not a single part of her body responds. Panic wells up inside, she uses all her force to shift, only a strained whimper escapes her numb tongue and lips. Air rushes into her ears, muffled rumbles coincide with the intensifying flashes of light in her small field of vision, abject terror solidifies into an understanding, almost into resignation.

She tries to form the words to trigger her suit to record her voice, coughs out a message she hopes will somehow be transmitted, or maybe for her suit to stay intact enough to recover, just as she feels a tingle along her arms and legs. "I love…you, Liara…I—I tried…I'm…sorr—"

She breaks down into a raw scream as the pain returns everywhere at once, finds strength in it knowing control can't be far behind, growls as she drags herself forward and up, the nails in her ungloved fingers tearing trying to find purchase on the floor, the walls. On one knee, she falters back down, the shin under her broken and bent, unable to support her weight. Again she pushes off, tilting her hips to lean on her other leg, a stream of blood spilling on the floor from her stomach, crudely stuffing the sash back into the wound, vomiting blood and bile as the violent movement disturbs the delicate balance in her abdomen. Grinding her jaw, feeling tooth or bone crack on the left, she grasps at the wall, pulling herself to her feet and reaching for the helmet just beyond her reach as the flash of light reaches her. A searing, harsh pressure slams her into the roof and into darkness as the floor reaches up to her. Dreams flitter past, unremembered but for fleeting scenes.

:

:

Someone spoke, rousing her into the dark waking world for an instant before dizzying sleep reclaimed her, only to slowly begin unfurling its gentle tendrils. She drifted in and out, sounds and smells teasing her consciousness without surrendering to examination, knowing there was something she needed to be up for but unable to work her way through the webs that kept her in the comfort of her cocoon. Gradually a burning in her heart grew, an unrest took hold and banished the instinct that had her clutching to the fading edges of the dreams.

Her eyes opened into a pale, diffuse light, a gasp on her lips strangled by something in her mouth and throat. Instinctively, she forced herself to stay still. Quickly taking stock, she felt…well, the agony all but gone. Sensation from scalp to fingers to toes. She lay on her back, a soft surface underneath her and something wrapped tightly around her. An uncomfortable constriction throughout her body, twitches and flutters as…as if something living wound its way through her. A pit of ache in the side of her stomach where she bandaged herself. Her head was light, dizzy, everything around her muffled and subdued. No sense of immediate danger. Keeping her breathing slow and even, she cautiously reopened her eyelids a fraction, letting her optics adjust to the light. Above her, only a solid white ceiling. Around her, a heavy silence but for a soft, steady chime that repeated every… Her heartbeat, she realized. _Hospital. This is a hospital._

She risked opening her eyes full, letting the light flood them and cleanse them of the crimson ghosts. A tight vignette remained, her brain rebelling against her vision and ignoring most of it. She pushed against the wrapping around her, pushed herself back and up against her pillow only to feel a gentle hand on her shoulder. Startled, she shrunk away, turned her heavy head to the right to see, followed the hand and white-clad arm up to a familiar, stern face haloed by locks of black hair. Miranda leaned closer, peered deep into her eyes as if searching for something, spoke words she did not hear, squeezed her shoulder with a smile before moving to the side.

Beyond, everything. Liara filled her world taking half a step forward, all else forgotten. She drank in the sight of the asari, the scarred cheek stopping her heart, the wan smile starting it again, the eyes engulfing her in their embrace. Her mind raced in search of dashing greetings, wit and beautiful words she could etch forever into this moment she was complete again.

Instead, it was her torn, ragged sobs that flew Liara onto her, the weight of the asari on her chest finally _giving_ her breath, fingers running along her jaw and twining into her hair, a hand cupping her cheek, cradling her, soft lips kissing away the tears and pressing urgently, tenderly on hers melting her away in a taste of salt.


	32. Chapter 31

"Well, this is an unexpected honor," Wrex rumbled from his slab, trying to stop his lips from curling into a snarl as twinges ran through his body when he rolled to his side. "I was just expecting the boy… Guess it's worse news than what the press conference said, then. Kirrahe," he added, with an acknowledging nod toward the salarian.

"Wrex," the man replied with a solemn bow.

"We felt it appropriate to see you in person about this matter, Urdnot Wrex," Lidanya said as she stepped in through the door behind Kirrahe.

"Damn right it is."

"Well…ah," the matriarch stammered as she moved to the side to give room to Victus, Bajic, and Han'Gerrel as they filed in. "We have received some data from Tuchanka via the drones."

"It is as we suspected, the salarians have a significant number of vessels in the DMZ," Victus said from the corner. "But the drones did not survive long enough to verify the situation on the planet."

"So it _was_ those traitorous worms."

"Yes. However…there were some other ships in evidence, as well. Many salvaged, perhaps stolen vessels, but a few seemed to be established Cerberus stock. It seems likely that they are involved in this, too."

Struggling to contain the rage that was throbbing his aching muscles, Wrex forced his voice calm. "…Alright. What the hell are they doing?"

"It's…hard to say at this point. We thought Major Kirrahe might have some thoughts on what the possible motivations could be."

"Yes…" the salarian said carefully. "Won't claim vast strategic knowledge, I am but a lowly soldier. Tactician. Still, something odd about this scenario for a full-scale attack. Even with Cerberus reinforcements seems uncertain to engage on ground, perhaps unwise."

"I agree," Wrex rumbled.

"Why spare the planet? If they wish to destroy the krogan, can simply destroy Tuchanka. Simpler, more effective. On the ground, your females can hi— _evade_ enemy forces, harry from afar—"

"Hah! Need a whole clutch of you to take out a real woman," the warlord barked, pride shining through his bristling.

"—So ground tactics ineffective. Orbital bombardment would solve problem quicker. Yes, possibility of punishment for treaty violation," Kirrahe hastened to add when Lidanya gave him a sidelong look, "but simply attacking krogan probably has significant consequences already."

"Yeah? I'm not holding my breath," Wrex said with a low growl. "But you make sense. What, then?"

"Must stress it is possible they wager that conventional war has smaller penalties, I simply do not know. It is _also_ possible—if unlikely—that a new genophage was developed, or cure reverted. Could need heavy presence to distribute such weapon, with the Shroud destroyed. Still, two more logical options."

"Well?" Grunt prompted, momentarily stopping his pacing at the foot of Wrex's resting slab.

"First, they wagered mission could be finished before we noticed. Pretend it was the Reapers, shut down both relays, eliminate opposition, then maybe route battle fleet through space outside relays, maintain as if they had been in the Basin all the time. High risk, but could work. Second, maybe they want hostages. Saw the opportunity, knew the timeframe was very short, seized the moment."

"Aren't they supposed to make demands if they hold hostages?"

"Yes, but on their terms. Have to secure the system properly even if other races are mostly indisposed here on Sol. Combined, extrasolar fleets could still cause significant problems. Only when system is completely in grip will they open negotiations."

"And they will hold our females hostage until, what, cure is destroyed?" Wrex bellowed, trying hard to restrain the rage encroaching onto him.

"Something like that would seem likely, Urdnot Wrex," Lidanya offered sympathetically.

"What about Cerberus, human?" Wrex snarled as he swung around to Bajic who, despite herself, flinched. "Why are Cerberus there?" the krogan demanded, trying to add a conciliatory tone into his question, shifting his posture to appear less aggressive.

"We…don't know," Bajic offered, visibly relaxing in concert with the krogan. "Their actions have been…inexplicable recently. Occam's razor says that they're probably just betting that either the mission succeeds, and they get rid of the supposed krogan threat, or that it fails but causes a schism between the salarians and others, thus strengthening the position of the humans."

"Occa what?"

"Occam's razor. It's a term that means the simplest explanation is likely to be correct," Bajic explained and received a satisfied grunt from Wrex.

"Damn it, I want Shepard here. Where is she?" the old warrior growled, his mood taking a turn for the worse.

"The Commander isn't available right now, I'm sorry," Bajic said carefully.

"What do you mean? The whelp said she was fine!"

"She's fine as in not dead, Urdnot Wrex, but she's got to heal up. It takes us humans longer than it does you. I'm afraid we're going to have to deal with this without her for the next few days."

The warlord twisted around and reached out for Grunt's shoulder, and wrenching the younger krogan down to himself. "Find me Shepard!" he bellowed over the youngling's protestations as he pushed him toward the door. "_Find her!_"

"Get out of here, all of you," Wrex rumbled in a glacial voice after a moment's silence.

"Urdnot Wrex, please, we must try to get some kind of resolution to act on this," Lidanya pleaded. "The civilian governments are reassembling as we speak. We are going to lose any possibility of capitalizing on whatever advantage we may have from catching them this early if the civilians are—"

"Get. Out."

:

:

"Hey, boss lady. You OK?"

Sanders was looking a little worse for the wear, uniform and hair disheveled—for her normal preppiness, anyway—and huge dark circles blotting her eyes. She looked up from the chair she had parked in front of the huge window lining the far wall. "Didn't we agree to stick with Kahlee, Jack?"

"I seem to remember it was either that or the swearing. It was _your_ choice—but I'll switch it up, if you insist…_Kahlee_," Jack muttered. "This ship's one fucking luxury cruise…nothing like what us proles get, this," she continued, waving her had around the spacious, well-appointed suite of rooms, noting the vista the window offered. "Fuck, even Shepard's only got this tiny closet to lay in. And you didn't answer the question."

"Privileges of rank. There apparently aren't that many top brass injured, so they put David here. I'm alright, thank you," Sanders replied, setting a datapad down on the table next to her and awkwardly pushing herself off the chair. "Sprained my knee and got some electric burns, that's all."

"Could be worse."

"Yes. Got these from a stray shot that blew up some navigation systems. We were pretty well-protected in the science fleets," the blonde woman said distractedly as she walked up to Jack with a slight limp, and grabbed her at the shoulders, holding the biotic at arm's length to look her over. "You don't seem any more roughed up than usual."

"Broke a few ribs, some scuffs," Jack replied with an awkward shrug, held as she was.

"Thank you for looking after the children, Jack," Sanders said quietly.

"Yeah, lotta fucking good that did."

"_You're the reason any of them are alive_, a wise woman said once," Vega offered from the doorway where he'd remained standing at ease in his dress blues, earning a baleful glare from Jack. "Think there was more swearing, though."

Sanders forwent the protest she, too, had on her lips and lifted an eyebrow, turning toward Vega with a hint of amusement in her voice. "My sentiments exactly, Lieutenant… We've met before, haven't we? You're _Normandy_ crew?"

"Yes, ma'am. Or was, anyway…I'm in N7 now, dunno how this'll shake out in the end. But I was there at Grissom for the rescue. First Lieutenant James Vega, ma'am."

"I think we can drop the _ma'am_."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Jack grumbled, still scowling at the marine. "Cub scout here probably addresses himself as ma'am when I'm not looking. Sit down, _Kahlee_, that shit can't be healthy, the way you're wobbling."

"I suppose you're right," Sanders agreed, and gave Jack's shoulder a quick squeeze before letting go and gingerly making her way back to the chair. "I'm not quite sure why it's taking so long to heal…and if you say it's because I'm getting old, this will go much, much worse for you, miss."

Jack smirked at the woman's back and cast her eyes for another chair for herself, finally settling for one at the small dining area and stepping toward it. She noticed the marine take a hesitant step toward the same, his hand extended. "I swear to _god_ I will put you right through that fucking window if you try to pull the chair out for me, Vega."

To his credit, the man hardly missed a beat as he pivoted toward assisting the grateful Sanders to sit down and prop her leg up. Jack slouched on her chair, and reached back behind herself to grab a dappled banana out of the fruit basket in the center of the table. "So…"

"So, I've been instructed by Admiral Shepard…" Sanders mused, pinching her nose but a small smile on her lips. "How is the Commander, by the way?"

"She's fine. Should be up and about any day now."

"That's good to hear. David thinks very highly of her, I know, and I liked her… So, yes," Sanders continued, blinking the tangential thought away, "the Admiral wanted me to use my judgment in disciplining you for your behavior. I suppose it's good that Vega is here, too, if I understand correctly that he was present for the incident?"

"Yeah, dumbass insisted on coming here with me since he felt the whole thing was his fault—and it _was_, shoulda put the fucker down himself," Jack replied with an accusatory look at the marine, "and to see Admiral Anderson since you wanted to meet here. I swear this is all just a huge fucking conspiracy to get me to drag this lout around."

With a kindly disapproving frown toward Jack, Sanders turned toward the marine. "I've got the report, but why don't you give me your version of the events, Lieutenant?"

Jack listened as Vega recounted the situation, trying to nonchalantly eat her banana with only surreptitious glances at the other woman to gauge her reaction. Vega—practiced as he was giving mission reports—did not take long to summarize the events, leaving Sanders sighing to herself and rubbing her temple, eyes squeezed shut. "Anything to add, Jack?"

"No, 's about right."

"Alright," Sanders finally said, looking up at Jack. "I get that you wanted to defend your friend—Dr. T'Soni seemed like a delightful person—and to tell you the truth, if you'd just punched the guy, I wouldn't care. He had it coming. The problem is that you didn't do _just_ that, did you?

"You have to understand that it doesn't reflect badly only on you, but _all_ biotics. It would, even if you _weren't actually teaching biotics_ at our most prominent academy! You're still far from being accepted into society as a natural part of things, and this is not helping. You have to comport yourself accordingly, as unfair as it might seem. Not just you against the world. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Jack muttered, eyes downcast toward her lap. "I _know_, all right! I get it."

"Consider this an official reprimand. If you do it again, I _will_ kick you out, and then we're going to have to get some useless two-bit Alliance washout to teach instead of you. Is that what you want?"

"No."

"Good. Keep that in mind, would you? And this isn't a permission to go around regular-punching people either. Now, I can't let you _completely_ off the hook for this…" the blonde continued with an intent look, "…So we're going with both Kahlee, _and_ no swearing."

Jack turned her head up, glowering at the smirking woman with her jaw tight, lips but a pale line. Vega was unsuccessfully trying to not grin, standing in what looked like actual ease for the first time.

"Oh, come on! That was a little funny, Jack…don't be like that," Kahlee scolded, and turned back to Vega. "I think we're done with the official part, Lieutenant, if you want to go visit Dav…the Admiral. I'm afraid I can't say he looks worse than he is…it's quite bad," she finished sadly.

"The Admiral's been through a lot, ma'am," Vega offered. "I'm sure he'll pull through."

"I know he has," the woman said with a small smile, "I was there for a lot of it. …The doctors are hopeful that he will, but it's hard to say how badly he's injured. Regenerating the damage to the spinal nerves will take at least a year, according to them, and it might still not work. And the head injury is supposedly in the area affecting memory, so that's a big question mark…So, you know, we'll see."

"Go on, get the f— …Go see Anderson, Vega," Jack said with a huff, waving the man away as she stood up and took a couple steps closer to Kahlee.

With a shake of her head at the marine lumbering into the adjoined room where Anderson lay, Jack stood at the window, taking in the vista of Earth surrounded by millions of pieces of debris glittering in the sunlight. _Pretty from the outside only, like everything else._

She heard Kahlee shuffle behind her, and sighed inwardly. "I'm sorry I got you involved with him again, Kahlee. I didn't want you to get hurt," she finally said as she turned to face the woman.

"Sorry? No, don't be…I always knew it'd be dicey with the war." Kahlee muttered quietly, with a deep frown. "I'm not going to claim that my place is here with my man or any nonsense like that, or that I couldn't have done without having to deal with this, too. But, you know…we had _something_. Maybe we still can. And it's not like it's a huge sacrifice to check up on him…he's kind of all I've got left, with Gillian who knows where."

"That's your wunderkind?"

"Yeah, do I detect a little jealousy?" Kahlee asked with a small smile. "She might be more bad-ass than you, Jack."

"As if. Didn't you say she was with the quarians?"

"Yes, she and Hendel were supposed to help locate possible planets for them to settle or somesuch. Haven't heard from either one of them in a long time, though."

"You'd think pretty much all quarians are either here or Rannoch by now," Jack mused. "They had that big recall and everything."

"They were supposed to be in the unknown space, no idea whether they've been popping to comms range to hear about it. Like I said, I've not heard anything…"

"I've got a few people high up with the quarians I can ask, see if they know anything that might have happened recently. Do you know where they were originally going, or which ship they were on or anything?"

"It's the _Idenna_. It'd be wonderful if you can get any information…"

"Don't hurt to ask, right?" Jack said with a shrug. "I take it you're not spending your days here?"

"No, they've been keeping me quite busy. I do try to make some time to come by every day. It's quiet here, anyway."

"What are you working on? Helping with the geth or relays or something?"

"The geth, yeah, we're trying to get them to a state where we can pull them back online if the order comes. And supposedly some will get to work with that AI they've got in the _Normandy_…although I'm told that we need to get clearance from Commander Shepard before messing with it."

"…Yeah, I imagine she'd be really f…really unhappy if you _messed with_ EDI. She's a _person_, Kahlee."

"A…person?" the woman asked, eyebrow cocked. "For serious and true, this…EDI is someone you'd call an actual person, not a machine?"

"Yes, _she_ is."

"…She?"

"Yeah, she's quite def—" Jack started before she took in the faraway smile Kahlee had on her face. "You look like you need a change of panties."

"Oh, hush," Kahlee replied with a wry grin. "But if…_she_ really is that advanced…I never got even close, not even with—"

"Yeah, yeah. If you're that drenchy about it, and if you promise you'll treat EDI like a real person, I'll get Shepard to ask for you by name. That should do the trick," Jack assured the hacker, earning herself a winning smile and a silently mouthed_ thank you_.

A brief comfortable silence descended then, both women staring out of the window, lost in their thoughts. Gradually, war forgotten, they fell into the equally comfortable routine of banter they'd shared many late nights in the Academy's dining hall. Vega, of course, broke the spell when he trudged back into the room like a herd of tanks a few minutes later. Jack noted his visibly distraught expression with unexpected concern, but brushed it aside for the moment, turning instead to say goodbye to Kahlee.

"And Jack?" Kahlee called as the biotic swung around to pull Vega toward the door by his collar.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for pushing me. For whatever it'll turn out to be worth, I'm glad you did. Don't be a stranger, yeah?"

"Yeah."


	33. Chapter 32

_A/N: Added a codex entry about languages._

* * *

Lidanya was still protesting, a commanding edge creeping into her voice, when Alina decided to forgo protocol, took the asari by the elbow, and physically pulled her out of the door. Wrex hadn't said anything else, but she could practically feel the barely bridled rage oozing from the krogan and felt it wisest to leave before something irreversible happened.

"Admiral Bajic! Unhand me," Lidanya said when she recovered from the shock of being led out, in a low voice that brooked no argument.

"I'm sorry, Matriarch," Alina apologized, taking a step away and raising her hands up as she released the asari, "but it's no good arguing with him, it'll just be worse. He's not going to change his mind."

"The human is right."

Alina swung around to the gravelly voice in perfect synchrony with Lidanya, barely avoiding bumping into the matriarch. She found herself unduly surprised by the younger krogan, Grunt, almost casually leaning against the wall a few meters further up the hallway—and blocking almost half of it from top to bottom with his enormous bulk. Asari ships—or the _Ascension_, at least—were built a little more spaciously than the ships she'd served on, but there was barely a half a meter from the top of the krogan's hump to the luminescent ceiling.

The door behind them had shut, she saw from the corner of her eye as she tried to guess where the krogan was looking. Han'Gerrel had already been walking in the other direction, but she heard the distinctive clack of the quarian's boots returning behind her, and the Primarch was standing on the other side of Lidanya, arms crossed and swaying his upper body slightly, mostly obscuring the smaller salarian. Puzzled, Alina turned her attention back to the krogan. "Weren't you supposed to go find Shepard, Urdnot Grunt?"

The massive youngling shrugged like the sides of a volcano rising and settling as pressures ran through it. He pushed himself off the wall with his shoulder, straightening to his full height. "I _know_ where Shepard is. I also know she's still sick. No reason to hurry there…I can just message T'Soni instead."

"With respect," the Primarch interjected, "it seems that your clan leader was laboring under the misconception that Shepard would be available, and furthermore very intent that you retrieve her immediately…?"

"Yeah," the krogan replied with another shrug as he beckoned the officers to follow him toward what Alina seemed to recall to be a lounge at the end of the hallway. "There's no point telling him otherwise when he's like that. He knows it."

"What do you mean?" Alina called out to Grunt's advancing back, gesturing Lidanya to go forward first and following on the asari's heels.

Grunt turned his head slightly down and back to respond as he walked along, one blue eye observing his five followers. "The reason you want Wrex in charge isn't that he never gets angry and makes stupid decisions. He does, just like any krogan," he said as he ducked below the doorframe leading to the lounge and waved his hand to dismiss some clan Urdnot guards from a corner he steered the group toward. "The reason is that _he_ tells you to get out rather than crush you like so many squishy things, and waits to make the decisions until he's calmed down."

The corner housed a small seating area of the lightweight and organic—but functional—style Alina had seen in asari architecture and decoration on the Citadel and the nets. On a military ship, everything was even further pared down, and integrated as much as possible; here the sofas and seats looked as if they had been carved directly into protrusions from the walls. The krogan himself remained standing—Alina vaguely wondered if even furniture out of the same metal as the ship would simply have been crushed under his weight—but gestured for the others to seat themselves. "Maybe," Grunt added indelicately with a look at Lidanya, "you should bring some asari of krogan bloodline with you. Could be wisdom to be found like in T'Soni's mother."

"Father," Lidanya replied almost automatically, appearing slightly flustered by the krogan's manner.

"Father, then."

The Primarch clicked his mandibles—much as she herself might have cleared her throat, Alina thought—and leaned back on the sofa with an ease that in her mind fundamentally conflicted with the usually stoic manner of the turians, and this one in particular. "So," Victus said carefully, "are you of the opinion that we should wait a while—what, a day or two—until Urdnot Wrex is more receptive to a discussion?"

"I don't think we have the time," Grunt replied, eyes still on Lidanya. "As you say, we have two things trying to shut us down from doing anything effective…if it's not the salarians, it'll be your civilians."

"Agreed," Victus muttered, with echoing nods from the three others.

Grunt harrumphed, and did a small not-quite-jump in place that Alina interpreted as frustration, a curiously youthful reaction that lead her into a contemplation of his idiosyncratically mixed behavior. "I will speak with T'Soni, and see if there is anything we can do," he said with a hint of resignation in his deep bass. "What _is_ there to do? We are all stuck here. I don't even know if Shepard could help now…"

"We could send a few manned crafts next, see if we can open some kind of a negotiation, or establish any contact," Lidanya offered. "The salarians must know their position is untenable. I…am still uncertain, however. This seems so unexpected that I am not certain how well I can truly judge our options."

"And don't forget about Cerberus," Alina said gravely. "I confess I had hoped that they'd at least fall in line if they didn't get outright destroyed in the war…"

"Yes, this alliance is very troubling," Victus agreed, and turned toward Kirrahe. "It looked like Sur'Kesh and the Annos Basin were still fairly well protected?"

"Fairly well, yes," the salarian replied with a nod, "based on the data received. However…Uncertain if presence in Annos is a strategic choice, or because not everyone agreed with—or was even told about—the decision to attack."

"You think the support could be that fractured?" Alina asked with a faint glimmer of hope.

"Yes," Kirrahe said curtly. "I am uncertain how familiar you are with salarian government? Nothing like yours. With the number of ships in the DMZ, at least a third is behind Linron—I am certain this is her doing—and likely a significant number supports her wittingly or not.

"But if could get some contacts into the Basin, Mannovai especially, perhaps might get a better idea. Maybe even leverage. Still have clan and friends there, unpopular as they may be."

Han'Gerrel, the quarian, had been silent throughout their trip, but chose to speak up when the topic got a little closer to his area. "I think we could repurpose the routing work that has been done, and set up a connection over QEC to a normal buoy. Just need to get the buoys there, of course."

"Not an easy feat, that," Victus grumbled.

"Still, it might be better than trying to send manned craft, even if we did get volunteers," Alina mused, turning toward Lidanya.

"I agree, we can attempt that. Still," the matriarch said, finally breaking eye contact with Grunt, "that does not immediately help the situation on Tuchanka. We have nowhere near enough forces outside of Sol to truly have a chance if it comes to war. At the very least we should try to get a message through to the ground. They must have sufficient equipment to be able to receive down there?"

Grunt's nod settled the matter for Lidanya. "Fine. We will attempt to send a broadcast to the DMZ, to let them know we are aware of the situation if nothing else, and then try to work out how we can get the comm lines set up into the Basin."

:

:

"_Athame, etiras napaai lette n'ta_, Shepard…"

Liara's breath brushed over her face from a handspan above her, even the air seeming to caress Shepard as it carried the words. The asari had cradled her for an eternity as she cried inconsolable tears into her lover's chest, struggling to control herself, to speak, to even be able to respond to the ferocity of the embrace rather than blubber uselessly, but nothing had stopped the flood until she felt Liara gently brush against her mind, flowing like water to fill the emptiness in her. As she welcomed the melding, the asari enveloped her perfectly, all the little sockets and nooks found and twined into as though there was but one whole. The only marking of time was the slow expansion that was their breathing, the heart that throbbed a languid electricity through them. Eevy felt the asari's yearning to stay, just stay, as Liara forced herself to ever so softly pull back, the infinitely light strokes of love and comfort flowing away into her own being like a silken tide drawing back into the ocean, small puddles and ponds left behind to sustain Eevy, to engulf the sorrow in her soul until the tide returned.

"_Silla…? Ies ne a…_"

As Shepard stared into the depths of the blue eyes, everything else unseen, she at first thought she was so dazed, dumbstruck, lovestruck that her brain simply did not register the meaning of the words. Then, as Liara spoke again, still unintelligible, the words refusing to make sense, for a flash she feared that there was something wrong with her until somewhere in her confused mind memory arose. _Silla_, lover, mate.

"Lilo…_silla_…" she started uncertainly, feeling her way around her jaw and tongue, straining to form the words even as she finally managed to lift her own hand up to Liara's cheek and clumsily brush her fingers over it, feeling the asari lightly lean into the caress. "You…you're speaking…Serran. …I…I don't understand…"

Liara's brow knit into a frown as she quickly glanced somewhere to the side before returning that wondrous gaze back to Shepard.

"Goddess, I am so sorry…I did not even notice I was doing that…but you should…_hrm_. Do you understand me now?" Liara asked matching Shepard's use of Astran, an edge of concern in her voice.

The intensity of relief was such that all Shepard could do was nod her head slightly.

"That's strange," a familiar voice said from the side. "I wonder if… _Verstehst du mich jetzt_, Shepard?"

"I know…that is…German…'Randa…" Shepard said with some difficulty, trying to project her hoarse croaking toward the side, "but the…translator doesn't…work. Also…very funny, just…you…wait 'til I can…get up," she added for good measure.

"Well, sounds like your cognitive functions are still running nicely if you caught that. I'll need to get someone to figure out what's going on with your translator," Miranda said, drawing a smile on Liara's lips to replace the briefly shown worry.

Shepard had gotten contentedly lost in that smile, again, with difficulty wrenching her eyes away from Liara's to wander across her face, smiling vaguely at every detail, every small imperfection, every freckle just where the universe had meant it to be, when Miranda's infuriatingly prudent advice bore through. "Still, I think we should do a quick basic check-up just to be thorough, if you can bear to tear yourself away for a few minutes, Liara?"

Over Shepard's embarrassingly ineffectual protestations and unseemly tiny squeak, Liara nodded and carefully slid her arm from under Shepard's back, reluctantly pulling away until, smiling, she ducked down to touch her nose on Shepard's and kissed her deeply, letting her mind brush against Shepard's again at that moment, overwhelming all senses with the enormity of the force in her chest, her heart stopped, breath stolen, her whole being quivering with the contained emotion.

"Oh, thanks, 'cause _that's_ not going to screw up all measurements for the next quarter hour," Miranda grumbled somewhere as Shepard felt Liara's lingering fingers pull away from hers, the weight shifting off the bed.

Shepard, still recovering from the shared moment of joy, vaguely became aware of her perspective shifting, as the end of her bed gradually climbed toward the vertical. She saw Liara standing next to the bed, now, stunningly gorgeous in a gray outfit she'd never seen before, smiling down at her. Miranda stood next to her, clutching a datapad in crossed arms, her expression a mixture of professional concern and greeting a long-lost friend.

The room itself was plain, if large, quite obviously meant to be a hospital room, all shiny, easy to clean surfaces, and simultaneously to her trained eye quite obviously located in a spacecraft… The measurements and proportions seemed normal for humans, marking her location almost certainly as one of the fleets' capital hospital ships. She saw a blast door on her left, elaborate locking software clearly visible from her seat, and the enormous array of HIs and other hardware that surely as anything told her that Liara had been spending her time looking over her. She tried to smile back at the asari, for the first time noticing a slight tightness on one side of her face…bandages. She looked down at her arms and hands, noting with some satisfaction that they seemed to still be in place, if somewhat sore. Experimentally, she wiggled her toes and was rewarded with the sight of movement at the foot of the bed.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, now," Miranda chastised kindly. "We'll get to that, but let's follow protocol. Name, rank, serial number? Or whatever it is that you're supposed to be able to recite in your sleep."

Shepard turned her head toward Miranda with some effort. "Staff Commander Eevy Elin Shepard, N7, eight, one, seven, three, one, two, seven, three, zero, two."

"Good. Which year is it?"

"2187…right?" Shepard asked, suddenly quite concerned. _What if…_

"Of course it is, Shepard…don't be so melodramatic," Miranda said dryly, eliciting a giggle from Liara. "You were only out a couple days."

"Although Jack did suggest that we should pretend you have been in a coma for a decade," the asari added. "…I could not tell if she was serious."

"Jack's OK? Our Jack?" Shepard asked, another surge of elation threatening to throw her back out of her precarious equilibrium.

"Yes, love, Jack is fine," Liara said with a small smile. "I will tell you everything you want to know later, alright? However, that does remind me that it might be time…do you think it alright, Miranda?"

"Yeah, so long as she's alone. Just let her know to get back to us if she's not."

"Wh—"

"You'll see, Shepard," Miranda said curtly as Liara turned away and headed for a desk sitting in one corner of the room. "Now, focus…look at me. Hey! Focus," the woman repeated, softly turning Shepard by the jaw to face herself. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Shepard struggled for a moment, flicking away recollections that must have been dreams. "On the Presidium…I had…activated the weapon," she said carefully, "and was trying to get back to the lift, but there was an explosion. No, wait…first I _think_ the weapon worked, there was a purple…force of some kind. And then an explosion."

"Good."

"…It did work, didn't it?"

"Yeah, Shepard, it did," Miranda said, her voice catching a little as she leaned closer to Shepard and smiled as broadly as the commander had ever seen her do. "It worked."

A million questions suddenly bubbled up from beneath the surface of Shepard's initial shock at finding herself alive and the pure happiness of seeing Liara—

"…_I've only got a couple minutes before I have to get off. Is she awake?"_

—Something about the voice instantly drew Shepard's attention, and she turned away from Miranda, toward Liara, where the sound had come from.

"Yes, Hannah…give me just a moment," Liara said, tongue peeking out between lips as she reached up and adjusted some kind of equipment attached to the wall just above her.

A second or two later, Shepard still trying to piece things together, the asari activated something on a HI with a beaming smile at her lover, and the empty space in the center of the room was filled with a flickering, bluish projection of Hannah Shepard, mother and daughter simply staring at eachother for a split-second.

"_Älskling_…" her mother managed before her voice broke, the tough military surface crumbling like a sand castle, tears welling in her eyes even as her mouth drew into a quivering, joyful smile that she covered with her hand, the other reaching out toward the projection and then clutching onto something unseen.

"Mom!" Shepard screamed out, the unadulterated joy bringing heat back into her eyes and tightening her throat raw. "Oh, god…are you OK?"

"Yes, baby, sweetheart, _I'm_ fine…"


	34. Chapter 33

"How are _you_ feeling?" Hannah asked a little too loudly as she tried to project cheerful confidence in her voice, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand so that she could try to see for herself. The asari, as if reading her thoughts, adjusted the projection magnification somewhere offscreen, pulling Eevy virtually closer by a few meters and almost causing Hannah to reach her hand out again.

The room looked exactly as it had been before, the only exception the new life in it. Eevy was sitting up with the end of the bed lifted up to support her, the ever-present blanket neatly folded down to her hips, and upper body covered by one of the paper-thin disposable shrink wrappers they had developed to replace the awkward hospital robes some decades ago. A canary yellow one, Hannah noted with an inward chuckle just as Liara walked past the view and toward the far side of the bed, apparently satisfied with the communications setup. Most of the bandaging on Eevy's face, neck, and arm was still in place, only a few areas revealing new, pink skin, but the terrible tubes going through her nose and mouth had been removed, making her look much less infirm. She didn't appear to be in pain, at least, and didn't seem too confused even for having just woken up and probably still feeling the effects of sedation.

"Fine, I guess…" Eevy said uncertainly, lifting an arm up and rubbing her neck. "A little fuzzy. You're really alright?" she asked as Liara carefully lowered the railing of the bed and sat down next to her. The asari snuggled close, laying her head on Eevy's shoulder.

Above all, her girl looked _happy_. It was a long time since Hannah had seen that infectious grin bubble up, so long… It seemed years—might have _been_ years of vidcalls with her daughter always tired, worried, angry, or usually all of the above.

"Yes, babykins. Broken arm, that's all." Hannah replied, turning her eyes to the raven-haired woman standing a little uneasily next to the bed on the other side. "How is she, Dr. Lawson?"

"Hey, I'm right here," Eevy protested, temporarily focusing on her mother again.

"Uh-huh. And your diagnosis was that you're _fuzzy_," Hannah noted, arching an inquiring eyebrow at Lawson.

"Fuzzy is probably about right, medically speaking," the woman answered wryly, glancing down at Eevy and the datapad in her hand before elaborating. "I'm going to go through a few of these standard tests, but she seems to be physically fine. The real doctors will have to check properly later, but we didn't expect any problems, and none are in evidence. You're _definitely_ on bed-rest for a couple days though, Commander," she added, casting a meaningful look at her patient.

"Yes, yes… Where are you, mom, you in Sol?" Eevy asked suddenly, turning back toward Hannah. "Actually, for that matter, where am I?"

The thought of the distance between them, minuscule as it was in comparison to the vastness that had so often separated them, suddenly brought the yearning—the _need_—to physically touch Eevy, to hold her close. It had been so good to be with her there in the hospital, the reassuring warmth of her shape…but it wasn't the same as when the other hugged you back. Nothing was the same. _Just a few more days, Hannah…it's been years, you can make it a few days._

"I'm in Sol, yeah. _Orizaba_ is tasked to guard the relay, we'll be here a couple days still," she said, blinking the heat away from her eyes. "You're on the _Tiber_, still firmly in Earth space."

"…_Guard_ the relay?" Eevy asked, sitting up a little straighter, instantly latching onto the word Hannah had hoped she wouldn't notice. "Why are you…I thought that—"

"No, no, don't worry," Hannah rushed to reassure, "it's more of a precaution, really," she continued, trying to find support from Liara and Lawson. "There's…there's nothing that you need to be concerned about right now. Liara will fill you in with everything that's happened, won't you?"

"Yes!" the asari exclaimed, punctuated with that sharp little nod as she turned her head up to Eevy with an assuaging smile. "We will have all the time later."

Eevy frowned, but seemed to be satisfied enough that she didn't need to go looking for a rifle right away, the smile making its way back and drawing one from Hannah in return.

"Listen, sweetheart, I actually have to go for a while…I'm already late, but I wanted to see you," Hannah said, noting again the messages from Bajic and Lidanya that had appeared just after Liara had called. "You're certainly in good hands, so I'll talk to you again after my shift if I can, okay?"

"Alright, mom," Eevy replied, the small bit of disappointment in her voice dying out as Liara laid her head back down onto her shoulder, and twined her blue fingers into hers. "It's good to see you," she added, her smile more confident now. "Stay safe, OK?"

"I'll try not to trip on the stairs or anything," Hannah replied. "Love you."

"Love you too, mom."

Hannah stood up from her chair and took a last look at the other side of the connection, her heart melting at the sight of her little one safe and sound with friends. She lifted her hand to wave goodbye, and turned to stride out and into the hallway, tapping the disconnect button as she went by.

"…_Babykins?"_

"_Shut up, Miranda."_

:

:

"Druid! _Druid!_"

Bakara turned from the makeshift desk she was leaning on and spotted Agot bounding toward the small command area from the tunnel that lead to the northern entrance. The boy was charging in at full speed, jumping over debris and skidding into walls leaving trails of puffy clouds of ancient paintwork that made her cringe. Not that she truly believed they would have been able to restore this particular complex, especially now; the wistfulness was as much for the walls having been let be consumed by time, fire, and radiation, as it was for the casual finality of a brush from a heedless shoulder.

"Druid, hah," Jurdon Etrak barked from her left just as the child came to a halt gasping for air. "Long time since that's held any meaning. Training the younglings to heed your every whim, tree-talker?"

"You should be careful how you talk about the tree-_seers_. They are deserving of respect, _Etrak_," Agot spat out between gulps of air, his shocking vehemence eliciting a deep growl from the scarred veteran. Bakara had noted the child clever and headstrong, but sometimes it worked against him…

"Watch your mouth, _boy_!" Etrak snarled, advancing a step toward the younger male. "You'll address me correctly or not at all!"

"Quiet, both of you!" Amak shouted as she strode past Bakara to shove Etrak back. "You, _deserter_," she sneered at the old warrior, "you are clanless until they address the matter in tribunal, though I don't think even Jurdon _vermin_ will be so desperate as to include a coward. A coward who has no respect for the shaman, no less!" she continued in a bellow before turning her head to the youngling shrinking back from her ire. "…And _you_ will treat your elders with respect, even if they've done nothing to earn it."

Pleased as she was about Raik Amak stepping up to defend her, Bakara wished the other woman had been a little more diplomatic about it, be as it may that the elder's prestige was considerable among the southern clans. Even Etrak was forced to swallow his pride and quiet his rage in her presence. As obstinate and unpleasant as the veteran was, his sensitivity to Agot's insult was understandable; being considered a deserter was a harsh fate for having missed the assemblies to be transported to Palaven and the other battlefields. The man had not taken well to being left behind with the women and children to begin with, and his mood had fouled completely as he realized his predicament placed him _below_ them in the pecking order on Tuchanka… Still, the man _was_ very useful in the war effort; she had to admit that the males had far more experience with such things. Just so long as he remembered his place…

With a precisely measured, emotionless, long look at Etrak, Bakara returned her attention to the child. "What is it, Agot?"

"Message, seer! Some orbital arrays are receiving a transmission! It's routed via the Marokh Array secure channel," the boy recited, his face scrunched up as he tried to recall the memorized message.

Bakara smiled behind her tattered veil, and granted the boy a pat on the shoulder as thanks. The salarians had cut all communications out of the system only seconds before the unmanned CDEM stations had picked up the main forces entering the system. Not many seconds after that, the orbital stations had gone quiet, too, only to be followed by the planetside communications centers and scrambled wireless connections. It had left them precious little time to try to hide away from the ground troops…their only saving grace had been that all the clans had just broken off from the Fifth Kelphic Gathering, and that the shamans had spent most of the preceding weeks scouring all possible sources for ruins of fortresses and cities that could be used if the Reapers returned. The only bright spot in all this, she thought, was that the salarians were unlikely to have committed so many resources to the attack if the Reapers hadn't been beaten.

"Go fetch Jorgal Nise, Agot. She's probably still sleeping," she advised the boy, knowing that the Jorgal leader would want to be present. As Agot ran away with a smile for the acknowledgment of a job well done, Bakara turned toward the communications HI on the left-hand wall only to find Etrak already there, trying to establish contact with the message hub that connected to the Marokh hardline. "Anything there, Etrak?"

"There is data on the line," the veteran huffed irritably as he hunched over the consoles. "Give me a minute to get it opened."

"Good, thank you," Bakara said quietly into the concentrated silence that engulfed the cavernous room.

{…help you …soon as it …comes possible,} a voice crackled from the speakers moments later, only to die out into a quiet static almost immediately, as if they'd only caught the end of the transmission. It was hard to tell much about the speaker, but Bakara ventured a guess that it was either an asari, or a human female. Not a familiar voice, however.

Amak cursed quietly at Bakara's side, Etrak louder at the HI. Bakara herself sighed inwardly, and hoped that someone had been smart enough to reco—

{This is …ch Lidanya of th… allied fleets in Sol,} the voice emerged again, the obviously recorded message cutting in and out, and everyone in the room scrambling closer to hear. {…eaper forces h… been destroyed. We …aware that the …ians have taken adva… the disarray of the war …attacked …a. Because of prob… the relays, most … our forces … unable to assemble imme… but …me reserves to try to sec… …rized zone. …krogan and oth… in Sol …still significantly strong, but …be some weeks …is operational again. …ttempt to …void the enemy until …will help you …soon a—}

Bakara, too, recited an old curse as the transmission cut into dead silence, even the static hum gone. Whatever ship or drone had been sending the message had survived longer than she expected, truthfully, but even still, it was hard to figure out exactly what had been said. She couldn't even be—

"What if it's a trap? We shouldn't be too quick to believe this," Etrak asked in a low grumble, vocalizing Bakara's thought as he straightened up and leaned his back against the wall above the now-silent console.

"Maybe," Amak agreed, "but we were going to remain hidden _anyway_. This changes nothing."

"I'm inclined to believe it's genuine," Bakara offered, sparing a glance at Nise who was clambering up the few steps leading to the room. "And as Amak says, we will not change anything. If it is real, we may have help arriving. If not…well, we were alone five minutes ago. We will still need to locate new strongholds, find more food, more sources of water…"

"What is it?" Nise asked gruffly. "Some kind of a transmission?"

"Yes, badly garbled, but it seems that at least someone knows about the salarians and doesn't approve," Bakara said with a nod, and turned back to the male. "Were you able to record it, Etrak?"

"Of course I did, you…" the veteran started, but thought better of it and offered a grudging nod. "Yes, it's there."

"Maybe you can see if you can extract more information from it, Nise? It was difficult to ascertain any details, just that whatever help we can get will not be arriving soon."

"And the Reapers are dead," Amak added.

"And that."


	35. Chapter 34

"Captain Calitx! Good to see you again," Kaidan said, offering his hand to the older man as he stepped aboard.

"Likewise, Spectre Alenko," the man answered, first pulling his wiry frame into a salute, and then taking Kaidan's hand for a vigorous shake.

"I'm glad I was able to get you and the _Leyte_ to join the task force," Kaidan said as they broke off the handshake and turned to walk toward the bustling CIC.

"It's an honor, sir. Besides, only a few ships old enough to have buoy factories," the captain replied, suddenly falling silent.

Kaidan nodded. The specific ability to process comm buoys quickly was the main reason he had suggested the _Leyte_ when Lidanya and Bajic had approached him. That, and he had liked the captain, found the man highly competent despite his few eccentricities—one of which was his tendency to trail off or simply stop speaking in the middle of a sentence. "I see a couple new faces. Did you lose much of your crew?"

"Eleven, although every single one of them wanted to come along when I gave them their temporary orders. But missing or wounded family is more important, and I'm glad the brass recognizes that. Everybody on board is excited about the task. We had a flood of volunteers when the call went out…so the newbies are all top-notch. I'll introduce you at the crew briefing."

"Sounds good," Kaidan agreed, a quick frown passing on his face from the reminder of what would be left behind. "I don't think it'll be a particularly _exciting_ two-three months of doing absolutely nothing, but I suppose it might carry them the first week or two," he continued, managing a wry grin.

"Let's hope it'll be the least exciting trip in the history of human space travel, Alenko."

"Indeed," he said, acknowledging the salutes from around the CIC as they rounded toward the staircase to the crew deck, and glad that the captain had taken to addressing him more informally. "Have the guests settled in already?"

"Yes. They arrived a few hours ago, think they're down in the bay setting up their equipment and the buoy line as we speak. What about the asari, are they ready to ship out?"

"I spoke with the captain just before I headed here. They'll be ready in a few hours."

"Very well," Calitx said approvingly, abruptly stopping just past the staircase as they reached the crew deck. "Here we are. I will not accept a rejection this time, Alenko. I have already arranged my necessities in the XO's office."

Kaidan opened his mouth to protest anyway, but one look told him the captain had already made up his mind, and that it would be an insult to decline. "Thank you then, Captain," he said instead, tapping the panel to open the cabin door. "I suppose I will go and unpack. When are you holding the briefing?"

"I'd prefer to have the asari on board, so it sounds like next shift change would be good. I will let you know," the man said with a smile and, without another word, saluted casually and headed down the stairs.

"Alright then," Kaidan said to himself amusedly, already feeling right at home with the captain.

Stepping inside the cabin was a bit of a shock. The captain never spent significant time in his quarters–Kaidan had never been invited in, either—but somehow he'd managed to make the space the most homey thing Kaidan had ever seen on a ship. The desk and work area were orderly and neat, but one of the walls was covered by an enormous mural depicting some kind of a lizard. At first Kaidan thought it was an actual _mosaic_, but upon closer inspection he discovered it to have been painstakingly painted using tiny geometric shapes—mimicking the pieces a mosaic would have used over a white grout—and covered in some kind of a lacquer that gave it depth.

The opposite wall was the target of a small and ancient projector that created a base like paisley wallpaper in shades of purple, and overlaid it with a collection of mostly abstract art. Kaidan ventured that at least some of it was reproductions of works by the captain's namesake Miró, but the others he could not even guess at. The sleeping alcove at the back was yet another story, with its thick, ancient-looking and ornate rug that the captain had somehow managed to attach to the floor, the brightly upholstered chair—also firmly anchored—and the equally colorful bed.

He laid his pack down and sat down on the chair at the work desk, chuckling despite himself. The mirth was, however, short-lived as his thoughts almost immediately returned to the call he'd been avoiding making the entire day. Liara being so nice about everything almost made it feel _worse_. Sighing heavily, he sent the connection request.

{Kaidan!} the asari greeted him brightly after a brief wait. Surprisingly, however, she had only opened a voice connection. {…Where _are_ you? It looks very pretty there.}

{I…ah, hi. I'm on the _Leyte_. The captain's got a…taste,} he replied after realizing Liara was probably commenting on the mural behind him, and feeling a little awkward not seeing her in the other end in turn. It reminded him of speaking to a mirror, somehow, but he felt it impolite to comment on it. She might be getting dressed for all he knew.

{I see. It does not resemble the kind of art that I have come across, but it is interesting,} Liara said with a smile in her voice. {How are you?}

{Well enough, I suppose, thanks for asking. How about you…you two?}

{We are both fine, Kaidan,} the asari replied, suddenly sounding a little more serious.

{…Good to hear. Listen, uh,} Kaidan jumped in before Liara could continue. {We're flying out today.}

{Today?} she exclaimed with a little gasp. {I thought you were not supposed to leave at least for another two days!}

{Yeah…well, we felt it was important to leave as soon as possible given the recent events, and the crew here got everything set up in record time,} he replied, noting the complete silence in the other end of the line.

{I see—}

{I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to wait and come see you when she wakes up, but…} Kaidan started, unsure if he really was sorry to postpone the inevitable.

{I understand, Kaidan,} Liara said a little sadly as the turned the voice channel on once again after a pregnant silence. {She…I am sure she will also.}

{I _will_ be able to keep in contact, sort of, or at least that's the plan with the comm buoys. But the farther we go, the longer it will take, of course…} he trailed off, once again thinking about the paradox that if everything worked as planned, their success would be broadcast to Sol weeks _before_ the message announcing the attempt would make it there.

{Weeks ultimately, yes, I know. Were they not able to give you the use of a QEC?}

{No, and I can kind of understand it. There aren't enough of them to risk getting completely stranded here if endpoints on either side start going offline.}

{That is true. I wish you could have taken the _Normandy_, at least…}

{You can say that again, but it'll be at least a month or two before it's fixed up. Anyway, uh,} he veered back to topic at hand, {just, uh, take care of yourself. And tell…give Shepard my best, OK?}

The silence in the other end stretched to seconds. {…I will, and I will tell her, Kaidan, thank you. Please be safe, and send updates.}

{Yeah,} he said with a nod. {Alright.}

He breathed deeply as he disconnected the channel, quietly cursing himself. Then, he swiveled around and picked up his pack to stow the contents in the locker provided.

:

:

Liara swung her chair around as the image blinked out and the channel disconnected, leveling a kindly disapproving stare at Shepard. "Why do you refuse speak with him? You should have…"

Shepard, arm pulled back and up by Miranda to test the range of movement, simply stared back with that same sad, angered, and barely restrained expression she had worn when Liara had tried to implore her to speak earlier, with Kaidan still on the line. "He apologized, Shepard. He is trying…"

"An apology isn't good enough," Shepard muttered gruffly. "He apologized once already, and then what does he do? Goes right the fuck back to doubting me! He could have gotten the councilors killed. Could have gotten _you_ killed!"

"Shepard…"

"I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you—"

"I _know_ you are not upset with me," Liara said soothingly as she got up from the desk and walked over to the foot of the bed. Just seeing her increasingly lucid bondmate brought a smile to her lips, but she fervently wished that the world in which she awoke had been a little simpler. She curled her fingers over Shepard's uncovered toes and lightly brushed the pad of her thumb across the soft arch of the sole, eliciting a sharp gasp and a cascade of twitches. _I missed that so_, she thought as she favored Shepard with a sly smile.

"Reflexes seem fine," Miranda stated matter-of-factly.

Shepard's murderous look at the good doctor melted away as Liara gently squeezed her toes again. "Promise me you will speak to him. Later, if not now," she tried once more, determined to not let their few remaining friends be stolen away by circumstances. Not _now_.

Shepard fixed her gaze with those eyes of hers, still miraculously expressive, nearly as they had been. _Maybe now she would reconsider the operation_, Liara thought distractedly, filing the question to bring up later. Instead, she simply held her eyes patiently, knowing that Shepard would come around sooner or later. When Shepard looked away, Liara lightly, reassuringly squeezed once more until the woman reluctantly turned back and allowed their eyes to lock again. _Promise._

"Fine," Shepard said finally, her resolve crumbling into a resigned acceptance and a wan smile. "I promise, Liara. It's not like I'm not glad to hear he's fine."

Liara smiled back and, as Miranda seemed satisfied with the upper body and moved toward the foot of the bed, rounded the corner of the bed to make room for her.

"Listen, Miranda…" Shepard said uncertainly, running her hand through the cropped shock of hair left on her head in an unconscious effort to brush it out of her eyes, her expression momentarily one of dismay as the realization dawned but softening again as Liara wound her fingers into the soft, slightly curling locks at the back of her head. "I…I really appreciate you doing all this. I'm glad it's you."

Miranda stopped prodding a shin and, looking up from her datapad, flashed a small, enigmatic smile as she cocked her hips to the side. "Isn't this what you held me back for?"

Shepard grinned back even as she softly nudged back with her head. "Hey, sue me for wanting someone competent alive and in charge if we lost. Your useful skills if we won were just a bonus. …But I mean it, thanks. You didn't need to," she continued with a more serious edge in her voice.

"I know."

"So, uh, when can…_these_ come out?" Shepard inquired pointing at the tubes still running underneath the blankets as Miranda turned back down to her pad.

"A nurse can take care of those later today," Miranda replied without looking up.

"Thank fuck for small miracles," Shepard said, leaning back down into a half-sit against the raised end of the bed. "Also, I'm _starving_. You guys did feed me, right?"

"You only received a nutritional solution, Shepard," Liara said, recalling her interrogation of the selfsame nurse. "While it sustained all your nutritional needs—likely better than your normal diet, I might add—it would not have been enough to sate any feeling of hunger that…oh," she finished as she noticed Shepard smiling up at her. She mock-pushed the woman away by the shoulder, and was rewarded with a happy giggle.

"The nurse will give you instructions on when you can start eating. Probably a few hours from when the tubes are removed," Miranda noted, still concentrating on the little device she'd brought out and was using on one limb at a time. Liara thought it might have been for controlling the nanites, but was not certain and hadn't had the chance to ask.

"Goddamnit."

"I am sure it is for the best despite the temporary inconvenience, Shepard," Liara said, hoping to sound comforting.

Shepard frowned at her, but did not succeed in maintaining her severity for long. "So where is Kaidan going, what's so important?"

Liara stole a glance to the side, and found Miranda looking back at her. The woman nodded discreetly. "I suppose this is as good a place as any to start bringing you up to speed on recent events," Liara said, starting quietly but gaining confidence as she went. She made to reach for a chair from behind her but just as she turned, she felt Shepard's arms circle around her waist and effortlessly pull her onto the bed next to herself.

"Tell me," Shepard whispered in her ear.

Liara leaned into the embrace, the firmness of the arms around her and the contrasting softness against her back sending thrums of pleasure all through her. She arched her neck—

"Alright now, you two."

Reluctantly and aflush Liara pushed herself into a sit, one leg hanging over the side, and turned slightly more toward Shepard. "When the weapon fired, there were two distinct parts to it," she started, straining to keep her explanation clear and professional. "First, there was a great spherical pulse centered on the Crucible. It spread out through the entire system, we are not quite sure how far exactly. This pulse…erased the Reapers. The scientists say it is as if they were wiped clean of all the programs and whatever else there was that made them alive."

"This is probably the force you saw," Miranda said from the chair she'd pulled out, Shepard nodding in agreement.

"Then, seconds later, it fired a beam of energy directly at the Charon relay," Liara continued. "As far as we can tell, this energy went through the relay, and then branched through all other relays, causing a pulse like the first one in each. Because we do not know the radius of the effect, or whether it varied in strength, we cannot be _certain_ that all Reapers were destroyed. But," she hastened to add, "there have been no reports of surviving ones. They _seem_ to have been affected everywhere."

"But…" Shepard prompted.

"…But something about the energy beam caused a malfunction in Charon, and some other relays. It appears as though the first relays the signal went through were affected worst. Some of the ones that were initially malfunctioning have returned to working…but so far there have been no signs of progress with Charon. It is possible that it cannot be repaired."

"What about Arcturus? It—"

"It is also gone. No relays could connect to it from the outside."

"…So we're stuck in here. And Kaidan is flying out to find other relays to use," Shepard stated, not really a question but for her raised eyebrows.

"Yes," Liara said with a nod. "Or, more precisely, there are some known inactive relays within reasonable distance that your Alliance has charted. Hopefully one of those will work, if Charon cannot be repaired…"

Shepard sighed heavily, drew her knees up, and buried her face in her hands.

"It's not all _that_ bad, Shepard, beats the hell out of the alternative," Miranda said dryly. "We're no longer being slaughtered by the millions, and in the worst case it'll take a year or two to fly to a known system with a working relay."

"It's not that, Miranda," Shepard mumbled through her hands, a strange edge in her voice. "I…goddamnit."

"Shepard? What is—" Liara started, growing concerned about the woman's sudden anguish, only to be cut off by the entirely too cheerful chime of the door.

Exchanging a glance with Liara, Miranda stood up and started collecting her accessories. Liara wrapped her arm around Shepard's shoulders and hastily tried to coax her to co-operate, admonishing herself and lamenting the circumstances that forced her to forgo trying to comfort her lover. "Shepard…you must pretend you are still asleep now."


	36. Chapter 35

_A/N: Sorry about the longish delay. New job week turned out to be a little more time-consuming than I thought, and I figured the DLC might consume many a reader's time…so, here we are._

_As always, thank you for the critique, encouragement, reviews, PMs, faves, follows, and other contacts, I really love it that you take the time to interact :)_

* * *

_Fuck, fuck, fuck…_ Shepard chanted, fingers digging into the soft skin of her forehead and temples. _Fucking selfish, stupid bitch, look at this mess… Why did it have to be __**my**__ ch—_ The chime of the door she barely heard, but Liara's simple gesture, just the arm circling tightly around her, was enough to wrench her up from the worst of her self-doubt and into the present.

_OK, OK…come on. It's not so bad, she's right. It's done, there's no use for what-ifs. We can get through this—_ Her head shot up. "What?"

"You must feign sleep while we see who it is," Liara repeated, still only a handspan away. Her scent swirled in the tiny currents of air that her withdrawal had caused.

The words made sense to Shepard, but conflicted with the assurances that everything was fine and well in her addled brain. She had seen no real signs of concern from either Liara or Miranda—or her mother, for that matter. "Why?" she asked, puzzled.

She was trying to conjure the answer from Liara's eyes, but it was Miranda who spoke first, behind her. "We're just trying to give you a couple extra days of rest," she said quickly but evenly. "The admiralty is very keen on debriefing you and shoving you in front of as many cameras as they possibly can, not necessarily in that order. So, to that end, we'd like to curate the group of people who are aware that you're up and at least nearly about."

Shepard frowned, eyes still intent on Liara's. "I feel fine, I can handle a—"

"I know you can, but you should rest…you have earned a few days for yourself," the asari said comfortingly, gentleness in her gaze, but with the very distinct determined undertone Shepard had come to know and adore.

_I sure as hell could have used a bit of rest time_, Shepard thought, fidgeting in place restlessly. Her body was almost getting ready to get up by itself, following the yet-unsaid orders out of habit. It wasn't her place to decide. If she was needed, then she would—

"_I_ have earned a few days, Shepard," Liara said quietly, turning her eyes down at her lap and the hand she was holding on to.

_Goddamnit. When did I get __**this**__ dumb?_ Shepard reached up to Liara's face, gently laying her hand on the curve of the asari's jaw. Her fingers lightly touched the soft skin of Liara's ridged neck, thumb brushing over the cheek inviting her to look up again. She heard a quiet sniffle as Liara still hesitated, and ducked down to seek out her lips. When they broke from the kiss, Liara was looking into her eyes with a furtive smile. Shepard laid her forehead against the asari's cooler one, staring into those sapphire pools. "Yes," she whispered, smiling as she felt the cloud of Liara's anxiety fade away from their still-shared space.

Miranda cleared her throat—a little closer to the bed by the sound of it, but Shepard's murmur of acquiescence obviously still inaudible to her. "We really are safe, Shepard. There's nothing that can't wait a day or two. Besides, despite your continued deliberate misapprehension, you only answer to the _Council_, anyway," she said, spitting out the word.

"It's OK," Shepard said, turning her head to the side enough to see the ever so slightly discomposed woman out of the corner of her eye and flashing her a smirk. "You're right."

"Oh. …Well, good," Miranda replied, sounding almost disappointed that there was no need to argue further.

"Alright then, Lilo, get up so I can _feign_. Should I snore, too? I didn't, did I?"

"Only a little," Liara replied coyly as she pushed herself off the bed and set toward the other side of the room, unconsciously straightening her outfit in a manner that, despite its casual nature, sent a flutter up Shepard's stomach.

Shepard reluctantly lay back down against the mattress, allowing it to smoothly lower itself back to its normal position. As she shifted around and settled herself prone, Miranda helped unfold the blanket and quickly tucked it in around her. Shepard couldn't help but smile at the woman's displeased expression at the hastiness of her work, the clear struggle she underwent to prevent herself fussing further with it. She quickly closed her eyes and tried to wipe her smile off as Miranda's gaze darted toward her, exactly when the chime rang again almost in concert with Liara toggling the intercom from her omni.

"Who is it?"

{Grunt.}

Shepard bit the inside of her cheek hard to prevent a grin from taking over as relief and excitement vied for dominance in her chest. She'd fought Chakwas to the very last over the doctor's insistence on keeping the badly wounded Grunt back, but eventually had to succumb to her iron will. She'd been right, of course; in his condition he would have been all but useless dirtside and they didn't have the hours it would have taken to get him upright, but still… Now, though, the pup, obviously alive and well, came with the dissolution of her terrible fear that just the _Normandy_ making it through the battle was going to be too much to really even hope for, but—

"He looks to be alone, but stay still until we are certain," Liara, presumably now with a video feed as well, instructed quietly just before Shepard heard the blip of the lock opening and the tiny hiss of the door sliding to the side—and then the crashing footfalls and the familiar huff as the krogan bent down and turned to fit his nearly two-and-a-half meter frame through the door. _He did always hate human construction…_

"Lawson," Grunt said from the door in his deep rumble, powerful enough to be felt as the slightest physical vibration even a few meters away. "Liara," he continued, surprising Shepard with the almost imperceptible change she picked up in his voice, a slightly higher, softer tone betraying affection for the asari. "How is Shepard?"

Shepard shrugged out from underneath the blanket and sat up no longer withholding the grin. She'd not heard anyone else entering along with the krogan before the lock announced the door to be sealed once again, nor anything indicating an ongoing comms conversation, and wasn't surprised to see that he was indeed alone. "I'm good, Grunt," she answered with exaggerated nonchalance.

"Shepard!" the three others blurted almost at the same time, Grunt's happy bark of a greeting contrasting with startled disapproval from Liara and Miranda.

"Oh, relax, I could _hear_ he was by hims—" Shepard managed to say before the krogan strode over and crushed her against his armor. Hot huffs of breath washed over her as she smiled into the chestplate and awkwardly liberated an arm to wrap it around his waist as far as she could reach.

"Grunt…" Miranda said warningly, "she's not quite healed up yet."

Grunt recoiled instantly, as overly cautious about human frailty as he was whenever he was reminded of it. Shepard chuckled and reached out to pull the krogan down to her level—about halfway down—by the arm. "It's OK," she said, struggling to catch both his eyes at the same time, as always, and just settled on headbutting him gently. It was a curious habit, especially as keen as the krogan were to use it in violence, but Bakara and Liara had concluded that it was likely an evolutionary adaptation similar to smiling, which had developed in many humanoids from a sign of aggression first into a gesture of appeasement and finally an expression of pleasure. Shepard didn't really care, she just knew that he responded well to it.

She let go of Grunt, taking a closer look at him as he straightened back up. He'd obtained new, slightly less heavy armor from somewhere and appeared to be mostly fine otherwise. A few new scars ran across his face and arms, a couple of chips had appeared on his plating, and he seemed to be favoring a leg. Curiously enough, she didn't see any obvious weapons on him—that was a first.

"He came looking for you on the Citadel, you know," Liara said, squeezing Grunt's arm just above the elbow as she stepped past him over to the bed. She carefully moved the tubes closer to Shepard's leg and out of the way, careful not to tug on them, and sat down at her knees.

"You did?" Shepard asked, a little flutter in her chest as Grunt nodded curtly. "Thank you…"

"There's a video and everything," Miranda supplied from the chair she'd pulled out again, ignoring the vicious glare the krogan cast at her. "Grunt's quite famous around the galaxy now."

Liara, apparently noting his growing discomfort, navigated toward a more kroganly subject but shot a meaningful sidelong glance at Shepard, inviting her to return to the issue more privately later, if she interpreted the look correctly. "He has also done an admirable job of leading the remaining krogan and representing them in the admiralty board."

Shepard found her eyes drawn to the angry-looking scar running over Liara's left cheek just below the eyelid and curving all the way up to the second fringe. She knew the asari counted them from their left, but didn't recall the name of the second one for certain. _The_ ebelos_, maybe? I'll have to ask her to show again…_ Liara hadn't seemed concerned about the wound earlier, but when she noticed Shepard staring, she ran her fingers across it self-consciously before quickly snatching her hand away again, finally settling on stroking Shepard's knee instead.

Grunt's hesitantly starting rumble drew Shepard's attention away from Liara, the krogan obviously more at ease with the changed topic. "…Thank you. Not easy, trying to maintain control over the remaining armies. We were significantly weakened while the cowards of the other clans survived in greater numbers. We are maybe a quarter of the original number where some others have as much as a third. With Wrex still recovering," he continued, possibly guessing the question Shepard was about to ask, "my position isn't terribly strong even amongst Urdnot. Nobody _really_ threatens me, of course, but I spend too much of my time knocking down weaklings with aspirations. Wrex was…better at that—_avoiding_ that. The other species are helping a little, too. Without their strong backing for Urdnot in the admiralty board, I'm not sure we could hold on to the reins."

"Sounds like you're doing quite well yourself, Grunt," Shepard said with more than a little pride for how the krogan was handling his new role, temporary or not. She was just about to ask him about Wrex—and the _Normandy_!—when something caught her attention.

She wasn't quite sure what she'd noticed—not even if it had been something she saw or heard. Something was subtly off in the room, she felt it clearly. Without bothering to conceal her alertness, she propped herself up better and cast her eyes around the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary—except for Liara, Miranda, and Grunt all looking at her curiously. _The translator is off, but maybe…_ She closed her eyes momentarily and tried to invoke the green seven-pointed star that she'd conditioned herself to visualize at will. When she reopened her eyes, the infrared–sonar visual mode had toggled on…and a quick glance around confirmed her suspicions. She grinned. "I can see you…" she said in a singsong voice.

Liara was the first to catch on and tried to follow Shepard's eyes toward the back of the room. "Kasumi…" she said plaintively.

Suddenly the shape was there, materializing as a brilliant source of heat where before only the faintest distortion of echoes and small temperature fluctuations had betrayed her presence. Shepard closed her eyes to turn the enhanced vision off again, and when she reopened them this time, the grinning thief was almost upon her. She braced for impact just as she was engulfed in another enthusiastic embrace. "Good to see you too, Kadzooks," she chuckled into the cloud of hair in her face.

"You're clearly almost fit for service! How'd you see me?" Kasumi asked when she eventually let Shepard go.

"I think it was that empty juice foil," Shepard replied, pointing at Liara's table, still not quite sure how she had known herself. "Not sure if it reflected, or was hit by a breeze when you moved, or…"

"You're getting good," Kasumi said appreciatively, and turned toward Liara. "You're so messy, T'Soni…" she said mock-scoldingly as she gave the asari a quick hug.

Shepard looked the small woman over as she greeted Miranda and Grunt in turn, shocked by the crude cybernetic struts that were quite clearly the only thing holding her left arm and right leg together despite her unconcerned manner. "What the hell happened to _you_?"

"You dropped a ceiling on me, lady," Kasumi answered cheerfully—and immediately hastened to amend her statement when she noticed Shepard's crestfallen expression. "Oh, come now, Shepard, I'm not blaming you! I just got hit by some debris when the Presidium started falling apart. I told you I was thinking about retiring anyway…"

_Another fucking thing I need to make up for._ Kasumi's assurances made Shepard feel better, but only a little. So much destruction… "You were in the Tower?"

"I was supposed to…pick up some supplies for the Crucible people, so I was at the Citadel when it got captured. Managed to avoid the husk things by hanging out in the Keeper ducts, and then eventually made my way to the Tower when it seemed like something was going on. I almost got to you, too!" she added with a hint of pride. "I didn't know it was you, of course, or anyone really, but I got to…that place where the Illusive Corpse was. The rest is…less clear, but we do have a video of it!"

Grunt let out a long-suffering growl—and Miranda stifled a chortle on the other side of the bed—causing Kasumi to turn toward the krogan towering more than half again her height above her. "Oh, you protest," Kasumi said in a husky voice as she ran her finger down Grunt's chestplate—which she had to stand on tiptoes to reach—and waggled her eyebrows in an exaggeratedly suggestive manner, "but you know you're my knight in shining armor…"

Grunt's bewildered expression was priceless, causing Shepard to burst out in a laughter raucous enough to send little twinges of pain through her abdomen and the bandages still on her face and around her chest. Liara, still by her knees, struggled between tittering and trying to give Grunt a comforting, sympathetic look. Finally, Shepard already trying to calm her breathing down to avoid tearing something up, the krogan's tension seemed to fade away and he himself barked a laugh as he nudged Kasumi's shoulder. The thief gave him a more serious one-armed hug and then, unselfconsciously, hopped on the bed next to Liara.

Noticing the expectant silence, Grunt looked around a bit uncertainly. "I only meant to come speak with Liara, really, since nobody bothered to tell me Shepard was up already," he said in what Shepard to her surprise interpreted a joking tone, "but I suppose this might as well involve everyone…especially you, Lawson, with your Cerberus history."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at that and glanced over her shoulder at Miranda who in turn was looking apprehensively at Liara.

"Grunt," Liara spoke quickly as she turned back toward the krogan, "Shepard does not really know the entire situation yet, so I am uncertain if this is the best place to start…"


	37. Chapter 36

"The fucks did _what_?" Shepard asked very, very evenly.

Miranda could see the muscles in the woman's jaw clench, and the heaving of her shoulders with the breaths she was taking to try to contain herself. The monitor readings belied the success of that effort. Truthfully, Miranda was relieved; she understood Liara's hope that Shepard remain ignorant of events outside, however briefly it might be, but the asari was deluding herself if she thought they'd had even the ghost of a chance. She probably didn't, not really. Sheltering Shepard from the outside world might have succeeded. Sheltering the outside world from Shepard, on the other hand…

Besides, as nice as it was to see a happy, unburdened Shepard, it had also been very disconcerting. As if there was something wrong with the universe, almost. Even back when she'd first reunited with Liara—god, has it been two years already?—there was always _something_ weighing on her.

"It seems that the salarians—and what remains of Cerberus—have invaded the demilitarized zone," Liara said carefully, her finger joints paling to a pastel as she tightened her grip on Shepard's thigh. "We do not believe they are engaging in exter… In an all-out war."

Miranda had to hand it to the salarians—it was exactly the right time to make their move. Even if Charon had only gone down temporarily, they might well have had enough time to solidify their position before any serious countermeasures could be taken. It was a bold move, especially if they were intending to use the krogan females as bargaining chips.

A beep signaled the crossing of another threshold. The monitors showed ever-climbing adrenaline and cortisol levels in addition to the more direct markers of heart rate, oxygen burn rate, core and extremity temperature… "Settle down, Shepard, you'll tear something open."

"No. Seriously, they did… After all this, _they did __**what**__?_" Shepard growled, sparing only a furious glance at Miranda for her suggestion. It was remarkable how much emotion the cybernetics could convey in the right sockets. The manufacturer should hire Shepard for its ads…if it still existed, that is. Probably not. Probably ashes. It was a shame, they'd had such a nice office, too. Wonderful views.

Grunt had remained unexpectedly quiet since imparting these most recent news to the foursome. The young krogan vexingly continued to defy Miranda's expectations almost at every turn. In this case, his calm might be due to a detachment from the krogan homeworld and culture…but on the other hand, he actually seemed to be far more knowledgeable about it than…well, any krogan she knew, at least. Interestingly enough, she saw a glint return into his eyes—or eye, to be precise, since he was turned slightly toward Shepard and Liara—and a little rocking motion emerge as Shepard's agitation grew. _Living vicariously?_

"None of you thought I needed to know this?" Shepard demanded of no-one in particular, waving her hand angrily.

"You know that is not true, Shepard," Liara said softly, ducking her head down and leaning in a little bit to catch the Commander's eye. "There is simply nothing that you can do about it here, now. It could wait."

The asari's directness seemed to take Shepard by surprise, and she faltered mid-objection, her fury visibly losing steam. She opened her mouth to say something, but apparently whatever Liara's eyes were telling her was enough to silence that thought as well. "Isn't there—"

"There is nothing you can do," Liara said again, patiently, her posture relaxing in synchrony with Shepard as the woman leaned back against the bed, heels of her hands covering her eyes. "We cannot get there, we have no communications, no contact…"

"Couldn't we send a broadcast or something?" Shepard asked, kneading her eyes with her palms.

"It probably wouldn't help," Miranda ventured into the conversation, running through the scenario in her head. It was, admittedly, a bit worse than she would've liked from their point of view. Would certainly have been easier to play on the other side. "The forces in the DMZ know the risks. They probably won't listen even to _you_ if you can't back it up in any way. Sur'kesh…maybe. I doubt you would find much support there, either."

Liara agreed with a sharp nod and looked up to Grunt. "Something is already being done with communications, I am sure?"

"Yes," the krogan barked, "the asari are supposed to send in some drones to broadcast a message to anyone left on Tuchanka—"

"…Why the asari?" Miranda asked, puzzled. "Wouldn't it be better coming from you? Or Wrex?"

"Some nonsense about displaying solidarity, Lidanya says. And we're not sure if it might be best to hide the strength and united resolve of the remaining krogan. So the asari it is. The salarian—yes, Kirrahe," Grunt clarified at Liara's prompting, "he thinks he might be able to get someone in Sur'kesh or…or the system to listen to him."

"Really? That is good news, if he really does succeed in finding some allies there. _Then_, perhaps, you could be of help," Liara said, turning back toward Shepard and receiving a dubious look in return.

"God-_fucking_-damnit. Are there any other crises I don't need to know about right now?" Shepard asked, pushing herself back up into a sit, the skin around the eyes reddened from friction. The woman seemed satisfied with the chorus of 'no's and whatever sincerity her gaze found when she looked at each of them in turn. "Why? Because of the genophage cure?"

"That seems likely," Liara said, looking for confirmation from Grunt. The krogan merely nodded.

Shepard frowned, bit her lip contemplatively, the familiar, almost seamless transition from rage into strategic planning drawing a brief smile on Miranda's lips. "What's their plan? They're not just killing everybody as far as you can tell…do they have another genophage prepared for use? Another contingency bomb?"

"I…do not know," Liara replied with a curiously emphatically, eyes intent on Shepard's…probably meaning that her _other sources_ had not gleaned much more information than what had already been fed to the admiralty.

Miranda idly wondered whether Liara knew that _she_ knew…the asari had still gone around the issue when they'd spoken about Ori, but she wasn't certain if it was out of genuine ignorance, or merely a charade to keep up for the benefit of any potential observers. They _had_ kept it under wraps admirably well—Miranda wasn't sure if anyone else beyond Garrus knew.

"Don't know," Grunt said evenly. "Doesn't look like a kill mission, they're not bombarding—at least from what the drones could tell—but there's a huge fleet there. It's unlikely that they've got a new genophage. The salarian assumes they were either planning on keeping Tuchanka hostage to begin with, or changed their plan when found out."

"And Cerberus?" Shepard continued, looking over to Miranda.

"I doubt I can answer with much confidence. I don't even know who's in charge," Miranda said after a pause. "The Illusive Man is dead, but you probably already knew _that_."

"Yeah, I put that asshole down," Shepard said with a solemn nod, "but not before he got Anderson."

_Anderson…?_ Miranda raised her brow, noting that the asari had apparently been caught off-guard by the same—and even Kasumi's ears had perked. Something to return to later, perhaps. "Yes, well, in any case… It's hard to say what their objective may be. Depending on how smart the people running the show are, it's either to try to destroy the krogan," she noted with an apologetic look at Grunt, "or to sow discord between the other species."

"So hostages…for what? The solution to this _problem_ is fucking trivial!" Shepard shouted, growing more animated again.

Liara looked surprised at that, stealing a glance at Miranda before turning back to Shepard. "I am sure it is solvable, but is it really triv—"

"Birth. Control."

"What?" the asari asked, momentarily puzzled. Grunt, too, seemed nonplussed.

"Remember that tinfoil hat Jack gave you?"

"…Oh. Oh!"

Liara's brief, purplish pause allowed the krogan to express his confusion about the issue.

"Yes, Grunt, birth control," Shepard reiterated, pinching an eyebrow between thumb and forefinger. "A means of not ending up with a baby every f— …every single time you—what do you call it—have sex."

"Oh."

"That would be fine in theory," Miranda mused out loud, question after another surfacing as she explored the possibilities further. "But isn't it clear that it hasn't worked? Why would it work now?"

"It's never been _tried_, Miranda," Shepard said tiredly. "Not at scale, anyway."

"What?" Miranda asked, as much out of surprise as to ask. It seemed like such an obvious solution, at least in retrospect, that it was nearly unimaginable that—

"It was never an issue until they started colonizing other worlds. The population was constantly eroded by violence. For the rebellion, huge numbers were desirable…and then, the genophage. The colonization was like all infant deaths had suddenly ended in the middle of the industrial revolution, or whenever the fuck it was that people still had a dozen kids."

"Where did you learn all this?" Miranda asked, genuinely curious. Shepard wasn't a bookish type, but somehow she always managed to pick up the strangest things.

"I talked to a krogan."

"Oh."

Liara, now recovered, seemed to find the logistics of the thing interesting. "I wish I had had more time to converse with Eve, now. How would it work, then? Do they…is there something that already works?"

"As I understand it from Eve, there are some…crude methods that would work as—is. Still, though, that part's easy. It's not fucking rocket science, surely we can figure something out," Shepard said quickly, starting to draw her knees up again but thinking better of it as some discomfort made her wince. She waved away Liara's look of concern and continued with a tiny grimace. "The real problem are the expectations. That's why this was supposed to be a perfect time—if we were to win, anyway."

"Perfect time for what?"

"To actually agree to go that route. Eve and some other…I dunno what you'd call them, female clan leaders?" Shepard replied, receiving only a shrug from Grunt on the issue of nomenclature. "Anyway, they were supposed to have the summits, as you know, about defenses and so on—but also to discuss the idea and maybe agree at least in principle."

"Because all the males would be away," Grunt stated, not as a question.

"Exactly. The population isn't going to be an issue for a couple years, anyway, so not having methods in place immediately isn't going to cause problems, but everyone's got to agree to only having a couple kids, only having them when they're a little older because of their lifespans…and so on. All the clans gotta agree, they have to teach their daughters the same…"

"Isn't that basically exactly what the genophage was doing?" Miranda asked. "It wasn't actually reducing your numbers, Grunt, it was designed to keep them stable. You killing eachother caused the decline," she added as she noticed the krogan's look of suspicion.

"Yes, but at the same time not at all," Shepard said after glancing at Grunt to confirm the krogan had understood Miranda's clarification. "Forced sterilization isn't the same as opting not to have children, Miranda, even if the immediate effect is the same. I hate the idea that they're having to do this under coercion, more or less," she continued after a heavy breath, "but at the same time, it doesn't really seem that huge a burden to only limit to a couple kids if that guarantees peace. The asari live long, too, but they're not crowding out the galaxy."

"Will the salarians believe that to solve the issue?" Liara asked, what passed for a brow furrowed in deep thought.

"Will _anyone_?" Kasumi piped up, all but forgotten until now. The girl had the uncanny ability to disappear even in plain sight. It was quite a remarkable talent for someone that…bombastic. "That's an awful lot of trust placed in them."

"Yes," Shepard agreed, back to gnawing her bottom lip. "But what else is there? Fuck, I don't know if it'd work, but it's a hell of a lot better than…than wiping them out because of what _might_ happen. I dunno. You're right, though," she continued grudgingly, "we need some kind of a solid contact before this can go anywhere. _Fuck_."

"Yes," Liara said visibly relieved. "I am sorry we— _I_ thought you might—"

Shepard dismissed the apology by kindly tut-tutting the asari, probably more than well aware of her tendencies. The look of concentration returned almost immediately, though. "This could be a problem with the relays."

"What do you mean?" Liara and Miranda asked almost in unison, just before Miranda realized that—

"The ones Kaidan is going to. We don't know where they'll lead," Shepard mused, eyes turned up to the ceiling for a change, almost as if she was visualizing the galaxy. "That's what they're supposed to find out. But once they _do_ know that they'll work or not, the destination needs to be kept secret."

Liara nodded as she, too, caught on.

"It's doubtful that the salarians would use them to attack," Shepard continued, "but I wouldn't put it past them—now, anyway—to try to shut them down or embargo them to keep us trapped, if the situation is still unresolved."

"I cannot imagine that they would do something like that…" Liara said uncertainly, not able to convince even herself. "Would they not try to negotiate instead?"

"Negotiate with what?" Shepard asked a little pointedly, softening her tone as she continued. "At that point, I'm not sure what they'd have left to negotiate with.

"Anyway, I'm sure Command has already thought about all this, but if the situation doesn't improve at all, it's going to be crucial to maintain secrecy. I mean, fuck, they shouldn't even broadcast success over FTL arrays…they're gonna have to get to a QEC first, to prevent the salarians eavesdropping… And if it's looking dicey, we need to minimize the time delay between the discovery of the relay endpoints and actually securing them. Maybe we can triangulate a point where an attack fleet can follow the probe ships to minimize the…no, that wouldn't work. They'd have to go with them and have the probe come back through the relay. Goddamnit, I wish I'd paid more attention in fleet strategy class."

Miranda scoffed, but Liara was a little more polite in her wording. "It may be that they have already considered these implications, but with the chaos it has been to regroup and reorganize everything, I believe it wise to ensure that they have. Grunt," the asari said, looking over to the krogan, "can surely bring these issues up in the next meeting?"

Grunt nodded confidently. "We have another stupid meeting in a few hours."

"I want to talk to Wrex," Shepard said suddenly.

Liara turned back toward the woman, leaning in inquisitively. "What good will that do? Grunt will—"

"I just…need to."

"It is not your fault, Shepard."

"Yeah?"

"No-one could have—"

"We should've seen it coming."

Liara frowned, and paused for a moment. "Fine. I disagree with that, but Grunt can have Wrex make contact through me when he is secure," she finally said with a sharp nod once again echoed by the krogan.

Miranda—suspecting that the asari had been right about gradually easing the Commander back into action being for the best, and thinking that some alone-time might be more conducive to her recovery—cleared her throat as she stood up and neatly positioned her chair back against the wall. "I have a few things I need to attend to. I could actually use your help, Kasumi, if you have a moment?" she asked, giving the thief a meaningful look. Grunt already had a task to complete, so he should be easy enough to drag out in tow.

Kasumi, to her credit, nodded and hopped off the bed—a little more awkwardly than she'd gotten on. "Sure. I've got something for you, Li, but _it can wait_."

_Clever._ Miranda walked around the corner of the bed and turned to her patient. "Everything checks out fine, Shepard. The proper doctors will be around at some point, and," she continued, checking her omni for the agenda, "the nurse will be over in a half hour or so. We can talk about eating and all that when I get back."

Shepard nodded curtly and muttered something inaudible. Liara, on the other hand, stood up beside the bed after a last look at Shepard. The asari took Miranda by the elbow and walked her the two steps toward the door there was room for, more of a symbolic gesture than a sensible one. "I have _some_ news for you, Miranda. Her ship was logged by Joab control entering through the Rosetta Nebula relay approximately 38 hours ago."

Joy, anxiety, and anticipation fluttered around Miranda's stomach as she looked up into the asari's eyes. "Are you sure it's her?"

"I am not sure, no," Liara replied softly, "but the manifest did not indicate any significant damage to the ship, and declared seventeen occupants."

"Seventeen?" Miranda exclaimed before she got a hold of herself. "It's only designed for _five_."

"Oh…they must be refugees then, perhaps?" Liara suggested uncertainly.

"Maybe, it could be they've picked up some. That's something at least," Miranda continued, trying to offer Liara a slightly more confident a smile than she felt. "Are her parents there?"

"I do not know, I am sorry," the asari replied quietly. "Do you think she is in danger? We could try to get her to someone we can trust on the outside. I am certain I could find someone in asari space to help—"

"I don't think there's anyone looking for her," Miranda said with an unexpectedly relieved shake of her head. They were all dead. "I just want to make sure she's made it."

Liara nodded sharply, squeezing Miranda's arm gently. "I understand. I will try to get some more information, and deliver your message."


	38. Chapter 37

Liara smiled at Miranda and Kasumi, grateful that Miranda had surmised the current topic of discussion was perhaps not the best one for quiet recuperation. Even if Shepard couldn't be kept in the dark, removing reminders of the outside world from her immediate presence might help. "Thank you. I will see you both in a few hours," she said meaningfully, trying to convey her gratitude without drawing Shepard's attention to it.

"Of course," Miranda said with a serious look. "Just don't forget what I said about rest."

"I remember," Liara said, feeling a little heat rise on her cheeks and crest. "You need not worry."

Kasumi raised an eyebrow at that but then rose on her tiptoes herself, reaching up to rather dramatically smooch Liara on the cheek. The asari smiled and gave the thief an one-armed squeeze in return before letting her back down.

Shepard's voice rose slightly behind them as she tried to convince Grunt to make his way back to Wrex. "Just go in for a private talk, but make sure he also understands to only contact _Liara_ when he's by himself."

"Come on, you big lump," Kasumi said cheerfully, reaching back to completely ineffectually pull on the krogan's arm. "You've got responsibilities to deal with. Then you can come back."

"That's not—" Grunt grumbled but apparently thought better of it as he noticed all three pairs of eyes staring at him from the door. "Fine, I will convey this message."

As the giant grudgingly lumbered past toward the door, Liara cast a quick glance toward the bed to see Shepard obediently laying down and closing her eyes again. She turned back just as Miranda a little hesitantly lifted her arm to almost take her by the shoulder, only at the last moment changing her mind and giving it an awkward pat instead. The woman drew her hand back quickly, but flashed a quick smile before turning to follow Grunt and the happily chattering Kasumi out.

One of the asari guards outside seemed especially curious behind her professional coolness today, Liara noted before banishing the thought as paranoia. Maybe she had just been trying to be nice or polite, even giving Liara a smile she reciprocated just as the door closed between them. She'd done cursory vetting on each of the handful of soldiers tasked with their safety, of course, but she couldn't well protest overtly even if she had found something troubling. With a quiet sigh, she crossed her arms and turned back to Shepard.

The woman hadn't gotten back up yet, but her head was turned toward Liara, the piercing eyes staring right at her over the top of her pillow. The earlier rage was gone, nothing remaining but a questioning, uncertain look. Liara held her gaze silently.

"Are you angry with me?" Shepard finally asked quietly.

Liara couldn't but love her incredible drive to make everything right, to solve every problem, but every single choice meant another risk. Another risk for _someone else_. "You almost didn't come back," she said coldly despite the hot tears welling in her eyes.

Shepard pushed herself into a sit and drew her knees up despite the obvious pain. She crossed her arms on top of her knees and laid her head on them, staring down into her lap. "That was no choice. You know we _had to_, or there wasn't going to be anything to come back to. And I did come back," she muttered.

"You did," Liara said quietly. "And now the war is over. We won."

"It's not over—"

"It _is_."

"What about the relays? The krogan?" Shepard demanded, turning her head toward Liara. "We can't just—"

"_I don't care about them!_" Liara shouted hotly before she caught herself, balled fists striking down through the air in emphasis. The anger hurt in her chest, her throat, her jaw, it pushed against all her muscles trying to get out as she forced herself calm. Embarrassed at her tears, she fiercely wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Goddess…I did not—"

"I know, it's okay," Shepard said after a brief silence, holding Liara's eyes again. "C'mere."

Liara stepped closer, keeping her stride steady despite the overwhelming urge to run. Shepard reached out as she came close, encircled her waist in those powerful arms, and laid her head against her stomach. Liara twined her fingers in the woman's short locks and held her close.

"I need time, Liara," Shepard murmured. "This is what I _do_. I can't just turn it off."

Liara reached down and tilted Shepard's head up to see her eyes. "I want to give you all the time in the world, _silla_," she said as she cupped Shepard's face between her hands and knelt down to bring herself to level with her bondmate. "That is what I am trying to do." _Promise me._

Shepard didn't answer. She just leaned in, hesitantly brushing Liara's lips with hers. Liara tried to smile, holding Shepard's gaze for a moment before eagerly losing herself in the kiss.

She felt the woman's hands cupping her face when their lips finally parted, mirroring her own. They stayed that way, lost in eachother for an untold time until Shepard darted in for another quick kiss, a peck on the corner of Liara's mouth before she withdrew.

Shepard pulled Liara up and onto the bed, shuffling to the side to make room for the asari. Suddenly serious, Shepard spoke quietly even as she reached her arm across Liara's back and onto her waist. "How bad is it?"

"How bad is what?" Liara asked as she snuggled under Shepard's arm, puzzled.

"Who all did we lose?"

"It…" Liara started hesitantly, "it is…better than I hoped. Here," she said, reaching to the side of the bed to pull up the swiveled datapad, "we kept this roster in the hours and days after the battle. It…has everyone. It is in chronological order instead of alphabetic or something else. I thought…I am not sure, I felt it appropriate to retain it as it came to us, somehow—"

Shepard silenced her babbling with a kiss on her crest, and they both turned to the small screen—but only briefly before the woman suddenly jolted. "Garrus is alive?" she breathed out, aghast or in awe, as she sought out Liara's eyes.

"Yes, he is" the asari confirmed with a sharp nod, her immediate smile faltering a little as she thought how she missed the turian. "He has not visited here," she continued sadly, Shepard's expression transitioning from joy to disbelief. "I think he believes he failed you—and I—by not following you to the Citadel," she said by way of explanation. "He has stayed planetside, away from us."

"He hasn't come see you because he feels guilty about _not following me_?" Shepard demanded angrily. "Where's my omni?"

"Over there, on my desk," Liara said carefully, gently stroking Shepard's neck and shoulder, "but you should not activate it. It may trigger an alert."

"You call him then," the woman replied coldly. "Get that asshole up here."

"I have tried so many times, but he has not come. Even when he has to fly up for meetings, he avoids me. I am not certain he—"

"Tell him someone is going to tear his other mandible off if he doesn't get his ass up here right this fucking instant."

"I will try," Liara said quickly, trying to placate the rapidly winding up soldier. "But he is alive, at least," she finished hopefully.

"Not for long if he keeps this up," Shepard said grimly, but Liara's persistent gaze finally thawed her expression somewhat. "Fine, you're right…damn that stupid turian. He's got to answer for this," she grumbled as she reluctantly turned her attention back to the roster.

"Anderson is ali— What the fuck is _this_, Lilo?"

Liara shifted a little, her right leg still flush with Shepard's left one and her right shoulder still comfortably snuggled under Shepard's arm, but her body turned further toward the woman. "I thought it strange you mentioned him earlier. The admiral was grievously wounded before you ever made it to the Citadel," she recounted to her dumbfounded mate. "His transport took a near-direct hit hundreds of meters out from the lift. Only he and two others survived."

"…But…I _saw_ him up there, with The Illusive Man. I spoke to him. I fucking _held him when he died_."

"I do not know what to say, Shepard," Liara said uncertainly, and not a little concerned. Even if some memory problems might be to be expected after what she'd been through… "It is definitely the Admiral. Kaidan helped him down on the ground, and Vega's been to see him since."

"What in the…" Shepard gasped just as the door chimed.

:

:

Garrus would've been easy to pick out of the crowd even without everyone kowtowing to him. He wasn't particularly tall or bulky for a turian, but James thought his self-assured comportment was pretty recognizable. "Vakarian!" he called out, not bothering with honorifics.

"Vega," Garrus said with a pleased jitter of mandible as he turned around and saw the newcomer. The assorted turian officers around him, initially pretty shocked by James' informality, split to make room for him to pass through. "Good to see a familiar face," Garrus said as he clasped James' forearm.

"You too," James said curtly, returning the grip.

"I see Jack's finally abandoned you," Garrus said, looking around and behind James exaggeratedly.

"Very funny, Garrus," James harrumphed. "I haven't even seen her all day. How did you—"

The turian clicked his mandibles and shuffled his feet slightly. "Kasumi keeps sending me mail."

"Oh. Huh," James offered. "Heard you were having some problems with the natives?" he asked as he followed Garrus' beckoning over to a tactical projection surface a few meters away.

"Not problems as such," Garrus replied, eyeing the assembled officers in turn as if to challenge his assertion. "They're just…unaccustomed to aliens. Seeing a turian in a vid isn't exactly the same as having one standing right in front of you."

"Yeah," James grunted sympathetically. "I bet most of these folks haven't even been to Luna or Mars, let alone anywhere vaguely cosmopolitan. Plus not that many other species on Earth yet…and even then probably just visiting bigshots and stuff, not hanging about with the regular people."

"So there's a little friction," the turian continued. "Nothing serious, but a few troublemakers and lots of people that go without help because they don't want to ask us. The children, though, seem quite interested and friendly."

James barked out a laugh, recalling the ragtag band of kids playing some kind of a ball game on an ashen field just outside the turian compound. "Yeah. The Alliance felt that it was best if all non-human teams partnered up with either Alliance or local troops. So, here I am. Actually only temporarily," he continued, "this isn't really my gig. They're supposed to have something else for me to do, but I figured I'd accompany Rivers here since I've a bit of leeway in what I do nowadays."

"Privileges of rank," Garrus said with an amused click. "Nice to see you all the same."

"You too, Garrus. We've missed you upstairs."

"I…" the turian started, faltering before he got any further.

"Dr. T'Soni's taken it kinda hard, Garrus," he added, not hiding the disapproval in his voice.

Garrus said nothing, only nodded his head as he turned to the projection for a bit. A few moments later, he straightened back up and turned to look James' squad over. "Where are my manners?" he asked. "Sorry. Welcome. It's nice to have you here, Sergeant…"

"Rivers, sir," the woman answered crisply, taking a step forward to be abreast with James and saluting.

"This is General Vakarian," James explained to the young sergeant, "an old friend of ours—so try to treat him with more respect than you do me, yeah?"

Ignoring James' barb, Rivers smiled up at Garrus. "Honored to make your acquaintance, sir. Heard a lot about you. Not from the LT, mind you, he never tells us anything. Can you imagine having to learn your CO worked with _Shepard_ and _the Archangel_ from the extranet?" she asked, casting an accusatory look at James.

"You and I will clearly get along very well, Sergeant," Garrus said with what looked like a grimace, but was probably meant to be an imitation of a human smile. Rivers, for her part, seemed to be pleased with the effort and grinned back.

Garrus clicked his mandibles, equally pleased, and turned to introduce James and Rivers to the dozen or so turian officers whose names James didn't even bother trying to learn…the military was easy, you can always just address everyone the rank–and that was visible. He _did_ memorize what appeared to be the rank insignia, hoping that'd be enough for now. Garrus also gave them a short tour of their HQ and a quick run-down of the types of missions they performed—mostly still search and rescue, mixed with occasional excitement—and it wasn't until almost the end of round until the temporarily more relaxed turian suddenly got serious again.

Garrus grumbled quietly as he walked away from their fairly large group to lean against a still-standing door frame with no house attached, his words and sounds something that James didn't recognize and his translator didn't seem to accurately resolve, but sounding a lot like cursing very, very profoundly. "Vega," he said quietly, gesturing James over and pulling his omni projection for the marine to see. "Can you stick around down here for a bit? Looks like I've got to go."

James grinned as he looked up from Liara's message and at the dejected turian. "Told you she was taking it hard. Heard talk she was good at making threats, might be good to be cautious with your mandibles—"

"Can you imagine Liara T'Soni ever using the word _ass_ in any context?" Garrus asked evenly.

:

:

Shepard woke up easily, languidly, a strange sense of contentment engulfing her. Not even a moment's confusion as she recalled herself in the hospital bed, free to move around at last. She lingered a moment, felt as though she owed it to Liara to not rouse herself immediately.

She felt refreshed after the sudden wave of exhaustion that had come over her after the nurse had visited to poke and prod her, and to finally extract the catheters—what a fucking relief that was. She'd ingested a small camera to ensure her bowel was healed well enough, and an IV to tide her over until the little machine cleared her for actual goddamned food.

She had gotten straight back to the datapad once the nurse had left, but an overwhelming sleepiness had struck her immediately. Liara, having noticed she could barely keep her eyes open, had badgered her with stubborn kindness until she had admitted that a nap might indeed be in order.

With a smile she remembered laying down on the soft mattress, and Liara curling up against her, promising to stay with her until she fell asleep. The asari had lain next to her, one leg twined around hers, arm protectively across her chest and face buried in the curve of the neck. Liara had nuzzled her neck gently even as her mind reached tenderly around Shepard's, soothing and calming, gently but insistently drowning all venturing, unruly thoughts under a wave of love and contentment in their small, private world.

Still smiling, she craned her neck a little to take in the room, and was not surprised to see Liara hard at work at her desk, brow furrowed, eyes intent on some piece of data or another. _Jesus fucking christ, can I get any sappier?_ she thought with an inward grin, opening her mouth to comment on the simple wonderfulness of the sight. An uncomfortable cough interrupted her just before she did, though, and then Aethyta's raspy voice before she could panic about someone else being in the room.

{So, yeah. The funeral is tomorrow. I know your dealings with her…well, they didn't go so well from what I understand, but…I guess I'm saying I'd like it if you came.}

"I will, if I can make the time, father," Liara said, an edge of exasperation in her voice.

{I understand if you don't want to—} Aethyta started awkwardly before being interrupted by Liara's intent reaffirmation.

"No, I will. If I am able to."

{Okay, okay.}

_Funeral? Guess there's many of those…_ Shepard quietly propped herself on her elbow to look and listen, not wanting to disturb the conversation despite her curiosity.

{There's something else too, kiddo. I, uh, need a favor,} the matriarch continued after a pause, working her way through the words as though every one was a proximity mine ready to go off.

Liara, though still visibly slightly irritated, apparently picked up on something in her father's voice, too, and tried to soothe out her tone as she replied, eyes pinched shut. "What is it?"

{I…need some people found. I thought I'd have enough leverage but I can't seem to get through anyone in the command to get in contact with them, and…and I'm kinda worried. I thought you might—}

"I can try," Liara replied curtly, but regretting her snappiness, hastened to soften her statement. "Who are we looking for?"

{Remember I told you about your sister? …Half-sister. Hanar.}

"Yes," Liara said, straightening up immediately. "Is she—"

{Her name is Lilani Napassa.}

"Li…lani?"

{What can I say, I've always liked _li_-names,} Aethyta said. Shepard could hear the grin. {Anyway, she was on Thessia, and— Look, I admit I haven't kept tabs on her recently except for the occasional chat. Didn't need the kind of supervision a certain someone does. But I told them to get safe a couple weeks before shit went down. She only argued a while before agreeing, so I hope…}

"I see," Liara replied, still curtly, but Shepard could _see_ her excitement and worry. "She's traveling with family, then? Is her…father with her too? Or…"

{No, babe. Mykenares died…fuck me, almost 400 years ago,} the matriarch said wonderingly. {Lilani's much older than you, but she's got two little girls. I think her mate is in service somewhere, but might be with them too.}

Shepard's ears perked and, despite herself, she felt a little flutter at the mention of the name, though still forced herself to bite her tongue. _Mykenares…a hanar. Surely not __**the**__ Mykenares…? Though if anyone, Aethyta'd be the—_

"Send me all the data you have, and I will see what I can do," Liara instructed her father kindly. "I suppose I should like to meet her too… You said _some people_?" she asked, as if an afterthought.

{Yeah…uh, there's another person,} Aethyta replied particularly awkwardly even for this conversation. {She's a huntress, in an independent commando unit. The last I know is that they were deploying somewhere in the Shrike Abyssal, just a little after the Reapers attacked.} She paused before continuing. {Her name is Linesse. Linesse Alene.}

Liara went silent for a while. "You have always liked _li_-names, have you?"

{Yeah.}


	39. Chapter 38

_A/N: Sorry about the delay once again. Last week was simply too busy at work to do anything. I like to write in long stretches, but it looks like I'll be trying to change to writing a little every day instead to ameliorate this effect in the future. Anyway, since FFN doesn't really have a mechanism for not publishing chapters, following (or checking up on) me on Twitter (twitter dotcom slash cmdr_eevy) or Facebook (facebook dotcom slash eevy . shepard)—my profile has the complete URLs—will keep you up to date better. You're welcome to talk to me on either too, of course!_

_With that, and much love…_

* * *

"I will see you tomorrow, father," Liara said after a long silence. Aethyta had not uttered a word since Liara had assured her she'd do her best to locate Lilani and her family, and Linesse with whatever companions she might have. The muteness was borne of a misguided sense of embarrassment for having to ask for help, Liara supposed, more than anything else. Her father had been rather fiercely protective of her, if secretly…but also proudly so. The role reversal must have been difficult for the matriarch to adjust to. Liara certainly did not feel as though Aethyta had been trying to keep her separated from her other children despite not having broached the subject in the few talks they had shared in the last days…perhaps the timing had simply not been right to—

{Thanks, babe. _Ascension_, at—}

"I _know_. I will be there. Good_bye_, father."

Liara squeezed her eyes shut and let her head hang as she touched the panel to disconnect the call. She was not quite sure why her father was so insistent on having her there for Councilor Tevos' funeral but, frankly, she did not have the capacity to wonder. Loath as she was to go in unprepared, she had resigned herself to simply making an appearance and seeing what came of it. Besides, she was honored to have been invited. It showed that the matriarchs were finally moving past her status, and that of her mother, or at least willing to entertain her presence and listen. Perhaps Benezia's name would be officially cleared even sooner than she had dared hope.

The other thing she could not ignore, not even with the surf of emotions the last days had been, no matter how hard she tried. The reminder of…family, such as it was, had taken her by surprise. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, never having met them, not even knowing if they were alive let alone whether they would have anything in common or any interest in having anything to do with her. Foolishly, she felt, it stirred in her memories of her _mother_. Logically, she knew it must have been because her only familial experiences were with Benezia, and her complete lack of any other family, but it still seemed so completely wrong—her sis— her _half_-sisters had no connection to her mother at all. _Maybe they were not even nice people…_ she thought before scolding herself, shocked at her unkindness…at her impulsiveness. She sighed heavily, wishing once again that she could afford just a little more time—

The arms sliding around her startled her momentarily until she gratefully leaned into the warmth and familiar smell of the embrace, turning her head up and to the side. _Why do I still think myself with no family?_ she asked herself as comfort enveloped her.

"Hey," Shepard whispered in her ear, and kissed her cheek on the tender skin just where her scar started. Feathery locks of hair brushed against the ends of her crest like a caressing breeze.

"Hi," Liara murmured back, marveling whether she would ever get used to how silently the woman could move without even trying. She wrapped her arms around Shepard's, twining their fingers together in her lap as she leaned a little forward to pull the woman even closer.

Shepard tilted her head to the side enough to catch Liara's eye, watching her with some concern despite the faint smile on her lips. "You OK?"

"You heard her, I take it?" Liara asked, lowering her head.

"Saw you, too," Shepard said, laying her chin on Liara's shoulder.

"I…I suppose I am," Liara said uncertainly. "Or, I do not know quite how to feel. I do not even know…my sisters," she continued, feeling out the word, "but I feel compelled to find them."

"That's family for you," Shepard muttered, her chin gently kneading at the back of Liara's neck as she spoke.

"_You_ are my family," Liara said after a pause, leaning her head against Shepard's. "And I am not even sure if they will like me, if we do manage to find them. What am I to them? What are they to me?"

"There's no way they could _not_ like you. I don't think _that_ is going to be a concern," Shepard said softly. "Maybe nothing will come of it…but then at least you will have tried to help people, if nothing else."

Liara smiled despite herself, and Shepard's obvious bias, when something she had missed earlier bubbled back up into her consciousness. "I know Ive heard that name before," she mused out loud, drawing slow circles on the tops of Shepard's hands with her thumbs as she thought.

"What, Mykenares?"

Liara shook her head sharply. "Linesse," she said, wondering why Shepard seemed to recognize the hanar. "And it was not long ago that I heard it."

Shepard frowned contemplatively in response, momentarily squeezing Liara a little tighter. "Can't say it rings a bell for me. Could it be something from the fil— Something you've come across in…the news?" Shepard finished lamely, catching herself.

"You can talk here," Liara said quickly, unable to prevent a little smile. "What about this Myke…nares?"

"Oh, I'll tell you later," Shepard said with an impish grin. "You've got this room cleared?"

"Yes," Liara affirmed with a small nod. "Kasumi and I just went through it again before activating the QECs—"

Shepard jolted at that, craning around and over Liara's shoulder to get a better look at the asari. "Wait what? You told Kasumi?" she asked, appearing quite shocked for a brief moment as realization dawned. "_Thinking about retiring_, was she? Can't really think of anyone more suitable for the job…but weren't you going to keep everyone else out of it but Feron?"

"I…" Liara started, drawing a deep breath but finding herself unable to continue. _Maybe later, Shepard._ That expression still heartbreaking, as though the professional failure had not been devastating enough. Ever since Hagalaz, Liara had done nothing but floundered, barely—

"Out with it, T'Soni," Shepard said kindly as she finally let go of Liara for long enough to sling down into a crouch at her side, one hand seeking its way back onto Liara's lap and the other stroking her shoulders.

"We have almost lost the network several times, Shepard," Liara stated evenly.

"That's understandable with the relays down. I'm ac–"

"Before that," Liara interrupted hotly, furious with herself. _May as well expose the entirety of it…_ "Even at the best of times we could only barely manage it. With the war…" she said, shaking her head.

"Why didn't you tell me you were struggling so hard?"

"You had greater things to worry about than fixing my failures, Shepard."

The woman looked up at her with infinite kindness. "Maybe there wasn't anything I could've done to help," she said finally, "but you could have _told_ me all the same, not just bundle it up inside. I worry about _you_."

Why had she not? The simple act of telling her lover _now_ did make her feel better, sharing the burden quelled the rolling tempest in her. Another foolish thing, selfish. Had she been more afraid to admit to her shortcomings than she had been of distracting Shepard? Why—

"You told me now," Shepard said, as if reading her mind. "And—"

"Why could I not have been a better information broker?" Liara blurted out. "The yahg managed it all by himself—or herself, possibly, we never investigated—"

"You were just a—"

"I _know_ I was just an archaeologist—"

Shepard squeezed her arm tightly, cutting her off and locking her eyes before speaking. "I was _going_ to say that you were just about the best person for the job, you dork," she said softly. "I'm _so proud_ of you."

A furtive smile tugged at Liara's lips, and a warmth surged through her as her lover's reassurances and approval unwound the tight knot in her stomach. _That is the only thing that means anything_, she realized.

Shepard cupped her cheek. "Nobody could've done it better," she insisted. "Fuck, you don't know how hard it might've been for the yahg! He's been at it for a half century, or whenever it was he took over. You've been working for a bit over a year, _and_ during wartime… You did wonderfully, _silla_," she continued, and reached up to kiss her forehead tenderly.

Shepard looked into Liara's eyes until she finally gave her a little nod, and then straightened reluctantly, the immediate absence of touch evoking a startling flash of yearning in Liara. She swiveled around to face the woman as though drawn by a magnet, and looked up questioningly.

"Sorry," Shepard replied, smiling sheepishly, and reached to vigorously scratch at her side underneath her arm. "Do I have anything else to wear? This thing itches like hell…and I'm feeling kinda stale, anyway, I'd love to wash up," she finished, looking around the room hopefully.

"There is a shower compartment behind that small door," Liara said with a smile in return, her heart still aflutter, "and I requisitioned you a dress uniform. It was delivered along with some exercise clothing," she added, noting Shepard's expression.

"Ugh, thank god," Shepard said with a theatrical grimace. "I hate the monkey suit."

The familiar idiom returned Liara's mind to the day of the ceremony just before they had left for— …before. They had all been there, gathered on the artificially sunlit embassy balcony. Tali and Garrus had joked about the woman's obvious discomfort but Liara remembered perfectly how she had thought she had never seen—never _imagined_—anything as beautiful as Shepard then, light playing in her hair and on her face, turning to steal a glance at Liara beneath her lowered eyelashes, a shy smile playing on her lips. That is when she had known, when she had thrown all caution and doubt in the wind. "You should not hate it," she said, trying to find the right words, her voice husky. "You are so beautiful in it."

Shepard opened her mouth to respond, but stammered before being able to speak, pale red flowers slowly blossoming on her cheeks as she blushed for the first time that Liara had ever seen.

At Miranda's behest, and Shepard's wellbeing her primary concern, Liara had steeled herself against the inevitable desire, and all the eventualities…all but this one. She felt an overwhelming rush of love, a need, a strum that melted her resolve. Before she even fully realized it, she found herself rising to her feet and pressing tightly against Shepard, sliding her arms on the woman's shoulders and seeking out her lips. Not a moment's hesitation as Shepard responded passionately, mouth opening to hers, those soft lips almost bruisingly fierce as they kissed. Their breaths, shared, became rapid and ever shallower, filled by eachother's intoxicating scents as they lost themselves in time and heat.

A plaintive moan escaped Liara's lips when Shepard finally drew back for an instant, only to lean in again to nip at Liara's lower lip ever so gently despite those sharp teeth before reluctantly standing back, eyes locked onto Liara's.

"I might need help getting into the shower," she said in a low voice.

"Help?" Liara asked coyly. "Didn't the nurse and Miranda just say you seemed to be in good health?" she continued, barely managing to moderate her smile to something within bounds of propriety, nearly trembling with the effort of standing still.

"Maybe I'm feeling a little weak," Shepard replied innocuously, eyes downcast. "You wouldn't want me overextending myself in there, would you?"

"No…I best come assist you," Liara said as seriously as she could muster. She moved a half a step closer to Shepard as the woman stood still, barely a finger's width apart from her lover. She felt the radiating heat, heard the quickened breathing. Electric flutters running through her arms and with trembling fingers she slowly tugged at the synthetic fabric of Shepard's garb, unfastening the seams holding it together and letting the garment slip off her shoulders and into a pile around her ankles.

"I'm getting a little pudgy from all this laying around, I think," Shepard said as Liara felt the woman's hand brush against her when she ran it across her own stomach.

"Now you are just fishing for compliments," Liara whispered with a little smile ending in a soft gasp as she moved in to trace the woman's sharp, hard muscles from her neck down across her arms, enjoying the warm and incredibly smooth human skin under her fingers. Her own skin still seemed so coarse in comparison, although her initial self-consciousness about it had been helped a little by sharing the thrill Shepard felt when touching hers in turn. She skipped from Shepard's fingertips to the curve of her hips and slowly, teasingly made her way back up over the taut, hewn abdomen quivering under her touch, and via an exhilarating, softer detour over the swell of her breasts to finally cupping her face and silencing her objections with a kiss.

"We best get you out of that thing, too," Shepard murmured hoarsely when their lips parted. "Don't want your wonderful outfit accidentally getting wet…"

"_Mmhm_," Liara mumbled and nodded, feeling Shepard's hands slip underneath the hem of her shirt, ever so slowly pulling it upwards, trailing fingers leaving tingling tracks along her sides. She lifted her arms to help Shepard pull the shirt off over her head, eagerly welcoming a kiss as the woman took advantage of her temporary bondage. Her hands freed again, she wound her fingers into Shepard's hair, guiding her down to her neck, and was rewarded with the tantalizing, electrifying brush of lips across her ridges there even as she felt hands sliding down her sides and onto her hips, curving slightly around her back and causing her to gasp and arch against the woman as the very tips of the fingers ran close to the sensitivity of the small of her back. Her breath catching, she felt herself begin to open and the muscles around her spine and underneath her fringe sending thrumming, pulsing waves of pleasure down throughout her body as they relaxed, became ready. Shepard knew it, too, grinning at her as she returned to kiss her again, her hands on Liara's hips joined by Liara's own as she hastily unfastened her slacks and pushed them down over her hips.

Liara's body pressed against Shepard's, pulled close by the woman's strong arms. She ran one hand across Shepard's waist onto her back and down, the other between their bodies to cup a breast. Her ragged breaths of anticipation became a low growl as Shepard's fingers ran up her neck and gently wound their way underneath her fringe, confidently caressing the incredibly sensitive, hidden ridges and sending her body quivering with pleasure. Liara gasped as Shepard lifted her up into her arms just as her knees buckled. The pleasure in her chest almost exploding, she sought out Shepard's eyes just as her own flashed into black. _Mine._

_I am yours, _Eevy thought in response as they became one.


	40. Chapter 39

_A/N: I forgot to mention it in the previous chapter, but there's a short 'scientific' companion text regarding the asari in my profile in case some of you haven't read it yet._

* * *

"Director Sanders?" a voice inquired somewhere far away.

Kahlee craned her neck to peek over the top of the desk she was working under, almost toppling backwards despite holding on to the surface for balance. Judging a graceful retreat the better option over an unladylike stumble after a fruitless struggle, she let herself fall on her behind before anyone noticed, and pushed herself right back up without missing a beat. Surreptitiously dusting herself off, she cast her eyes around the hangar to locate her seeker.

There, an Alliance uniform being given directions by the asari working with the geth prime—_wait, is that…?_ "Erven?"

The man marched closer, the lopsided grin she'd recognized him by broadening. He didn't look much the same he had thirty years ago when she'd last seen him in person—he had gray in his hair, a rare thing for someone only in their…what, sixties, and he'd gained quite a bit of weight—but the smile was the same as it always had been. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see you here up to no good again," the man teased as he got close. "Thought we'd seen the last of you when you got deported to the Spaceship School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

"Now, now," Kahlee scolded with a smile as she stepped around the desk, "the geth are our friends! I'm just helping our friends out to not be so…dead anymore. Besides, I'm a very proud Grand Vizier, the school's doing great."

"We have always been at peace with the geth," Erven recited as he took Kahlee's hand in a firm shake.

Kahlee frowned disapprovingly at the man, and pulled him close to kiss him on both cheeks. "_Rada tebe bachyty._"

"Good to see you too," the man replied with a broad smile. "I'm surprised you remembered."

"Nothing that enters here," Kahlee said tapping her temple and waggling her eyebrows as she withdrew, "is ever forgotten."

"Uh-huh," Erven agreed with a chuckle. "I didn't get a birthday card from you this year, liar."

"Oh, gosh…you're right. I forgot! Well…you know how it is with these apocalypses."

"Indeed," the man said, serious for a moment.

"Come, sit down. I'm sure there's a seat somewhere," Kahlee said, limping back into her corner workshop. "It's fine, just hurt my knee a bit," she continued, noting Erven's expression. "What're you doing up here anyway? I _am_ glad to see you, but this isn't a coincidence."

"No, it's not," Erven conceded as he parked himself on the corner of the work desk. "Your transfer to the EDI project has been approved. I'm…kind of the chief of staff for research now," he continued even as Kahlee jumped up from the seat she'd just taken, "so I saw the request come through. Had to come take a look, haven't seen you in so long."

_Feet, don't fail me now._ Kahlee grinned, both at Erven and at the prospect of getting her paws on EDI. "This is wonderful! I hadn't heard Commander Shepard had awoken, I wasn't prepared at all," she added as an afterthought.

"Hm? Oh, I gotcha. I don't think she has," Erven said after brief, confused pause. "This was actually signed off by that T'Soni woman on her behalf."

"Asari," Kahlee said distractedly over her shoulder, already packing her things into a box she'd spotted.

"Huh?"

"Asari, not a woman. Exactly, anyway."

"Yeah, her," Erven agreed. "Apparently asari law gives her some kind of a power of attorney."

"That's…one way of expressing it," Kahlee said, chortling, having spent a few idle hours researching asari customs on the local 'net.

"You're leaving us, Dr. Sanders?" a slightly metallic voice asked accusingly behind them before Erven could reply.

Kahlee turned around and smiled at Bine's short, masked shape. The young quarian—a child, really—had an endearingly forward manner about him especially as he compared to Kahlee's experience of other quarians. Cocksure, almost, as he'd simply declared himself her assistant when he had arrived with the small contingent of his kin. Kahlee had been a bit surprised by the relatively small number of quarians tasked to assist with the effort to bring the geth back online, but paying attention to Bine's constant patter had led her to understand that most quarians were still quite apprehensive of the geth, if not outright hostile—at least since the education effort about the Morning War as it was called. On the whole, Kahlee had been astonished by how readily the vagabonds had accepted responsibility for their part in the tragedy that left them homeless—none of the living had been around back then, of course, but she didn't have to go very far in human history to find people quite unwilling to even consider their own sins, let alone those of their forebears.

Even still, apprehension remained, and with as much as there was to do elsewhere, most quarians had a good excuse to stay away from the geth for the time being.

For her part, Kahlee was glad to have made the acquaintance of the few who had shown up. Loath as she was to stereotype, quarians were generally very adept with technology—and in this case, of course, probably more familiar with the geth than anyone else to top it off. Beyond that, the many late nights at the workshop had been made that much more bearable by their incessant antics, the impromptu musical acts, the short plays they'd improvised… Comedy was the one performing art at least these guys weren't particularly gifted in, but Kahlee was making some headway there, having introduced a few classics into their repertoire in exchange for promises to stage them aboard one of their liveships in a few weeks' time. "You should do fine here without me, Bine…it's not like I'm helping all that much at this point anyway!" she protested with a lingering smile. "It's more of a hardware issue with the geth. EDI sounds like they could use my help more."

"Drop the modest act, Doctor," the quarian said, his grin audible if not visible. "You just want to get your hands on that AI."

Kahlee still had a little trouble reading and interpreting the subtle clues the quarians so heavily relied on in their interactions, even with her experience dealing with Gillian, but she did alright with Bine. Perhaps the boy was just being especially clear for her benefit. The quarians had been around in the galactic community for millennia, of course, but they'd really only developed body language into an artform after their exile. Since then, they had been shunned essentially throughout to the point where they mostly interacted with their own, and few among the other species had bothered to learn their ways. Even after the recent reconciliation, it'd probably take a while for everyone to come around to them again. As it was with the geth, it was with the quarians, it seemed to her. "Yeah, maybe," she replied with a little smile, realizing her silence might be construed as full acquiescence—as accurate as it may have been.

"Ah, it's all the same," Bine said with a shrug as he sauntered across to peer at Erven curiously. "There's no usable data from Rannoch, anyway. The early reports were too optimistic, as you thought."

"I'm sorry, which reports?" Erven asked even though Kahlee suspected he already knew, clearly wanting to be included in the conversation.

"Ah, my apologies, Erven," Kahlee said, waving in the general direction of the quarian without looking up from her packing. "This is Bine'Amirai nar Taw. He has been trying to pad his pilgrimage résumé under the guise of assisting me," she added, grinning over her shoulder. "Bine, this is Erven Propokov, an old friend of mine from…the university, and currently a big cheese in Alliance research. And not a word about _being unaware that schools had been invented when I was young_ or similar witticisms."

"Oh, _keelah_," Bine swore at Kahlee following a sputter of laughter. "Nice to meet you, sir," he continued, swinging around to pull a salute.

"You too, Bine'Amirai," Erven returned the compliment, amused—if still a little unsettled by the kid. He had that kind of an effect. "So, Rannoch?"

"Why don't you fill him in, Bine? I've got to get my things together, as I assume Erven is expecting me to leave immediately… If you demonstrate you've learned how to present reports, I might even be inclined to take you with me."

The quarian almost succeeded in hiding his excitement, but Kahlee noted the telltale change of posture with a private smile as she turned back to her equipment.

"It looks like most of the geth received the shutdown message too late. On Rannoch, at least, as far as we can estimate they would've needed around 72–73 seconds longer for 50% deactivation. As it is, the pulse wiped them all out before they could power down," Bine was explaining when Kahlee's attention started drifting into the future. "We've got really little info about what they were doing those last moments, but some techs over there thought that there was some traffic indicating data moving out that could've been the geth dumping info, but we're not sure where and how to access it now—if it's even something that might be useful. The Rannoch teams thought it'd be easy to get to—easier than Dr. Sanders did—and…"

_Feet, don't fail me now._

* * *

The darkness took Miranda by surprise when she stepped into the cabin. It'd always been lit when she'd been there, come to think of it. Far from letting the unexpected situation affect herself, she stood in her customary position until the door had closed—and gave her eyes time to adjust better to the dimness. It wasn't quite dark, really, just comparatively so, coming from the blindingly lit hallway. She could make out the shapes of the furniture, everything becoming ever clearer even as she turned toward the only source of light in the room, the array of dimmed projections casting an amber hue over the shape of Liara at her de— No, not Liara.

Shepard craned her neck and leaned backwards far enough to look at Miranda upside down, wearing a grin that would probably have looked stupid even the right way around. Miranda crossed her arms and raised a disapproving eyebrow as she took in the scene a second time. Her eyes, more sensitive now, easily picked up on the clothing strewn around the room tattling the tale even without the sight of the obviously quite nude asari sleeping curled up on the bed with only a perfunctory sheet covering her. Shepard swung around as Miranda cocked her hips, eyebrow still raised. She tried to muster the energy to reprimand the commander, but found nothing. _Hell, good for them, really._

_God I need a man._

"I take it you're feeling well enough?" she settled for asking in a hushed tone to not awaken Liara—the asari had still been in desperate need of some sleep and if Shepard had somehow managed to coax her to slumber…

"Feeling pretty damn fantastic, 'Randa," Shepard replied, appearing only slightly disappointed that she hadn't been able to goad Miranda into an argument. "And good morning to you, too," she added with a smirk.

"Good morning."

"Got something for you," Shepard said, suddenly more serious, motioning her over and turning back to the HI panels she'd been working with.

Miranda picked her way across the room carefully, reaching down to grab the few discarded articles of clothing on her way and depositing them onto the now-abandoned cot Liara had been sleeping in. She came to a halt next to Shepard, and the woman called up a slightly brighter projection.

"We just got this hit from facial recognition in the turian news feeds this morning."

The voice-over was prattling about the efforts to coordinate the refugees, but the footage was obviously the interesting part. Labeled "Joab Refugee Center", it showed an endless line of people shuffling slowly from the right toward the left of the view. Mostly humans, but there were some clusters of other species—mainly turians—interspersed, too.

Shepard reached out to stop the video and pulled the image in, focusing on a tightly huddled group of humans. "That's definitely Ori," she said, tapping her face. "I think this is her father? Only saw him that one time, but looks like him. No sign of her mother, and most of the others moving in this group seem to be kids."

Miranda nodded, relieved. She'd been almost certain her sister was fine just by the arrival of her ship to the safe zone, but seeing Ori in apparent good health still lifted an immense weight off her shoulders. An inkling of an urge to try to get to her right away surfaced, but Miranda squashed it, satisfied that she was fine and almost certainly unhunted. Simply knowing where to relay her message and organizing getting Ori to a more comfortable location would be fine. What about all the others, though? There were thousands, probably millions of humans displaced by the war and left mostly fending for themselves. The center on Noveria might be—

"I'm sure we can arrange her transport out, or at least provide some kind of a…bodyguard, or something?" Shepard interrupted.

As nice as it was that Shepard seemed to have genuine concern for Ori—had had all along, really—her particular brand of problem-solving typically involved guns, if not outright space battles. "I don't think that's necessary," Miranda said. "My father is gone, and even though Cerberus as it is now probably has no love for me, I'm sure I'm fairly low in their target list as things stand. And even then, I doubt anyone remaining is clever enough to go after her to get to me."

"What's it hurt if we get her some protection? It'll be there if she needs it, and if not—"

"If not, a bodyguard might draw attention. Make her appear important in some manner," Miranda explained patiently. "Your ninja self should know this."

"Good point," Shepard conceded just as an unsettling sound emerged behind them.

It took Miranda a moment to identify the origin, but a glance toward the bed confirmed that Liara's breathing had become very quick, and shallow enough to alert her. Thinking the asari might be hyperventilating, Miranda made to go check up on her, only to be held back by Shepard's firm grip.

Noticing Miranda's expression, Shepard tried making a reassuring face. "That's normal. Don't ask me, I'm not a biologist," she continued, apparently picking up on Miranda's unconcealed skepticism regarding her expertise. "She's just waking up."

Miranda made a note to devote a few hours to studying asari biology, but was simultaneously reassured by the room lighting level steadily increasing—the monitor had noticed that everyone in the room was reaching wakefulness. Movement on the bed seemed to further confirm Shepard's assertion.

"Wish she'd slept a little longer," Shepard whispered when Liara started shifting around. "She was fucking exhausted. Probably not been sleeping for a week, has she?"

Miranda shook her head in acknowledgement and then, out of some modesty, averted her gaze when Liara sat up and stretched with a smile. She coughed softly to alert Liara to her presence but, to her surprise, the asari didn't seem particularly concerned about her state of undress—although she did have the sense to appear a little embarrassed over her lack of restraint when Miranda gave up on modesty, and gave her a long look instead. Waving away her explanations, Miranda grabbed the bundle of clothing she'd gathered and tossed it over to the asari. Liara slid gracefully off the bed and padded into the washroom.

They'd just gone over the situation with Ori again with Liara after she had returned, fully clad this time, and moved onto the topic of Shepard's breakfast plans when the door chimed softly.

"It's him," Shepard growled cryptically as she simply keyed the door to open without any precautions, and straightened up as she turned around to face the door.

Barely did Miranda have the time to exchange a glance with Liara before Shepard strode past them toward the door with an expression Miranda had seen only twice before. She turned to follow her just in time to see Garrus step in and the door begin closing behind him, the turian staring flabbergasted into the room and the figure advancing on him.

He'd gotten his mouth open to say _something_ when Shepard was upon him, but didn't actually manage to produce sound before the woman slapped him across the face hard enough to make him stumble a step to the side, floundering to keep his balance.

"You stupid, selfish prick!" Shepard shouted into the turian's face over Liara's gasp, Miranda staring slack-jawed. "You're hiding from Liara, making her cry because you feel fucking _guilty_?"

"I… I left you, I couldn't follow—" Garrus sputtered, taken completely by surprise, still slightly hunched and rubbing the side of his face gingerly even as he tried to straighten back up.

"I left _you_, Garrus," Shepard cut him off, her voice catching. "I thought you were fucking _dead_ when you didn't get up after that hit. _I_ left you!

"I'm so sorry," she whispered as she threw her arms around the turian and pulled him close.


	41. Chapter 40

_A/N: As always, reviews, comments, PMs, follows, and faves are my favorite thing. Thank you! They make this effort feel worthwhile :)_

_…There's also a new ongoing companion piece. Look for Coherence in my profile._

* * *

"_You stupid, selfish …Liara, making her cry…feel fucking_ guilty_?_" the voice rose and faded somewhere amidst the chaotic ringing in his head. Trying to keep himself upright despite the blackness that had his knees buckling underneath him, he blinked away the stars in his eyes, the words slowly winding into coherent meanings even as he realized Shepard must have punched him…he had just frozen still when he'd seen the woman, barely realized she was advancing before the sight of the bared teeth and eyes with murder in them were replaced by a white flash in his vision, followed by the inky black he was still shrugging off when he tried to speak, tried to explain, tongue-tied as he straightened up through the vertigo, but how do you explain not being there for your friends _again_ when they needed you—

"I left _you_, Garrus. I thought you were fucking _dead_ when you didn't get up after that hit. _I_ left you!"

No, that wasn't right, the shot missed. He had gotten up but Shepard wasn't there, looked for her, for Javik, tried—

"I'm so sorry," Shepard said, and suddenly there were arms around him, hair in his face, his visor pushed painfully out of position and into his temple, and the strange, long-absent sensation of a warm body against his, almost crushing him through his flimsy, barely armored dress uniform. She was undoubtedly _here_, he thought vaguely, relief washing over him as he uncertainly tried to place his arms and hands in appropriate places to return the embrace. The woman held him for a long while, oddly soothingly. Trapped though he was, he didn't feel uncomfortable—quite the opposite. He was surprised to find himself almost reluctant to let go when she finally pulled away. He still didn't remember it, but maybe he really had been knocked out…he had positioned himself stupidly on the flank—

Shepard grabbed him by the side of his neck just within the circle of his collar, and shook him admonishingly. "Jesus christ, Garrus, you did fine," she said, cutting off his protestations. "But don't ever do _this_ shit again, or I will tear you to pieces, best friend or not."

_If there's one rule in the galaxy…_ Garrus thought idly, his mind still a conflicting jumble when a hand appeared on Shepard's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. Liara had moved up behind Shepard without either of them noticing until her calming touch got Shepard to settle down once more.

The asari gave Shepard a kindly disapproving look and then turned to Garrus, poking him in the chest. "_Ever_," she said, before smiling and taking him by the forearms.

She looked him in the eye with entirely too much empathy and understanding. He tried to find something to say…he hadn't quite thought somehow—or had ignored the thought—that Liara was upset about his _absence_. He had thought all her disappointment was related to his failure, not…

"No, Garrus," the asari said with a little shake of her head. "I just wished you had been here. Even if you _had_ failed, somehow, I _still_ would have wanted you here. That is what I want you to understand."

He simply stood still, dumbfounded, completely out of his element. Such a failure was unforgivable…his own family would not welcome him, in public at least, after such dishonor. He wasn't sure what to expect when he'd received the message from Shepard, but this wasn't it. He realized he must have looked like an idiot standing there mandibles moving but producing no coherent sound, but couldn't straighten his head for what seemed like an eternity until rescued by Shepard throwing one arm around his shoulders and steering him toward a chair that Lawson—whom he now noticed for the first time—was pulling out from the far side of the bed.

"By the fuck, I'm glad you're still around, though," Shepard said, leaning into him and butting him on the shoulder with the side of her head.

* * *

Liara had had to excuse herself entirely too soon after Garrus had arrived in order to make it up to the _Destiny Ascension_ on time. At least Shepard had not argued about having to stay back for very long. Once she departed, however, she found herself gladdened by the length of the shuttle trip up to the dreadnought—she was practically floating, happy as she was this day, and it was quite unseemly for a funeral. Or for this one, at least…matriarchal funerals were typically not sad affairs, more celebratory, really, but the Councilor's…circumstances were more of an untimely loss, and it would just not do to be anything but solemn. She was not quite sure of the details, but it seemed that the Councilor had seen the war through after their clandestine relocation from the Citadel, and had taken her own life shortly after victory was certain and her work was done. Liara could…understand it on some level. She herself felt terrible at times about not having been able to do more—she could not imagine how it must have been for the Councilor when she had realized she had actively harmed the effort to prepare for the war for years. All those millions of lives…

She had checked on Kasumi on her way out, having just enough time to afford a quick visit. The woman had informed her earlier of her plan to go search for a ship they could use as their base at least until the _Normandy_ was repaired—if it ever would be. As careful as they were and had been, Liara shared Kasumi's insecurity about operating inside a vessel they did not control. She was glad to have found the erstwhile thief already hard at work co-ordinating the day's affairs with Feron in order to make herself time for ship-hunting. Liara hadn't had the time to stay and talk to the drell, but was reassured the two had everything under control for the most part until she was able to return.

On the _Ascension_, true to her word, Aethyta had run her through a whirlwind of measuring and tinkering by a handful of apparently very skilled clothing artisans, and finally presented her with a _kaupa_, the ceremonial white cowl worn for births and funerals, paired with a cream-colored, long, flowing gossamer dress with a wide strip of gold running down the front and back. Her father herself wore a deep, rich crimson suit the source of which—or the arm-twisting required for her own dress—Liara did not particularly want to know about.

She'd felt quite self-conscious about her attire, once again, until she was exposed to the opulence of the other attendees when they finally stepped out of the taxi at the botanical gardens on the Tayseri Ward of the Citadel. If it was not enough to have all the surviving highest-ranking matriarchs from the Citadel and the fleets present, every species had sent its own representatives in addition to any personal friends the Councilor might have had. To top it all off, there was an enormous projection on one side of the garden terraces, presenting a gathering of the Councilor's family and the cream of Thessian society and politics in remote attendance. The ceremony itself was also to be broadcast within the Sol system, and at least to all asari colonies, if not galaxy-wide.

The Ward, she had seen as they flew across a swath of it from the docking bay, was quite terribly devastated throughout—largely after the Citadel had opened its protective arms in the middle of the largest space battle in history, Liara thought sadly—but the gardens, evidently the Councilor's most favored place on the station, had been spared the worst of the destruction. She gathered from the various idle conversations with other attendees that in addition to the few Keepers she saw scuttling around the grounds and amidst the guests, many residents of the Ward—with their lives and livelihoods largely destroyed—had been spending their time working on the gardens, restoring and nurturing them. They had done a remarkable job of it, too…the garden was still beautiful, if just slightly monotonous consisting as it did almost exclusively of Thessian flora.

The conversations themselves were a strange experience for Liara. She had no idea how her father seemed to know _everyone_ in attendance—even if they did not know Aethyta in turn—but even stranger than the crude, hamfisted deftness with which she moved Liara through the crowd toward ever more illustrious circles was that, with the exception of Matriarch Lidanya who studiously kept her distance the entire time, everyone was very keen to speak to Liara. The event was ostensibly to share stories about the Councilor, about her life. For the most part the conversations were entirely superficial, as one might expect in such a gathering, but sometimes she also got swept up in political discussions far beyond her experience and understanding even with all the information she had been coming across recently.

Many were interested in Shepard, of course, and her as an extension of the human, as it were, but she was used to that—proud of it in a way, even. Still, however, more were at least outwardly curious about Liara's own views and opinions, loath as she was to speculate on matters she did not have full information on. Many had even brought up her mother in a positive light, further shocking the young asari. In addition to the various matriarchs, the turian dignitaries, as well as the humans—accompanied by Admiral Bajic, Liara was glad to find—spoke cursorily with her about the galactic situation before the ceremony proper began. As the assembled gathered closer to stand before a plain dais built to extend from a low promontory overlooking the gardens, the Three chosen to speak began their discussion of the Councilor's life, and of her death.

Interested as she was initially—it seemed that the Councilor had had quite an eventful life—after about an hour, Liara's mind had started to wander to other pressing topics with the ceremony advancing toward its end, when she suddenly heard her name declared.

_"…The Fifth is Doctor Liara T'Soni, a respected archaeologist and a hero of this war…"_

The words utterly froze her when they sank in, tied her stomach in a knot even as her father pushed her forward toward the dais. Shooting a panicked glance back at Aethyta, she only got an intent look in return—but the grin was there in her father's eyes. _She planned this, hoped for this_, Liara thought, aghast, as she kicked off her sandals and made her way through the crowds in a daze, hoping she did not appear quite as terrified as she felt. She knew what she was expected to do, of course, but she had never… Even her mother, they had not had the time or ability to assemble one for her. Mortally frightened she would fail to live up to the honor bestowed upon her, she pushed through toward the dais.

Looking past the staring faces, padding through the hushed whispers on the dewy moss, she tried to focus on the familiar form of Lidanya, apparently also called up for the Six which otherwise mostly consisted of the Councilor's closer friends. The matriarch was already in the queue at the bottom of the dais, and Liara quietly counted steps until she came to a stop quietly behind her, breathing shallowly to settle herself and staring hard at the nape of the older asari's neck until she heard the invitation to take their places. With a final sigh, she drew down her cowl and stepped up on the platform, locating her place on the far side of the Councilor as the Fifth in the circle. Studiously keeping her eyes on the nude form of the Councilor rather than look past her toward the crowd, she ran through her meditations quickly, letting the biotic energy flow freely within her until she started channeling it into potentia. Confident that she had sufficient energy and sufficient control, she finally nodded, not risking breaking concentration by looking away. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement as the others—all matriarchs, she thought vaguely—similarly acknowledged their preparedness.

A sphere enveloped the body of the Councilor, lifting it up just above the heads of the surrounding circle of the Six. As it came to a halt, Liara felt a calm descend upon her and upon the crowd as she raised her gaze, all hushed, even the Keepers having paused their scuttling. Focused on this task alone, she felt her arms drawn up toward the sphere, and the small, tugging pulses that counted down gained strength until she had to unleash the energies she had been holding back at the exact same time as the others. The body was instantly engulfed by six powerful biotic fields, warping the space within in incalculable directions that tore the body apart into a cloud of molecules in a bright, churning vortex. As the containing sphere vanished, and when Liara finally released her hold on the energies and the maelstrom died away, she liked to think that she saw that which used to be Tevos T'Mion drift away into the wind and disperse over the gardens below.

* * *

"Where the hell is she, then? I need to talk to her," Bailey shouted at the Blue Suns captain he'd driven up against the wall at the entrance to the club he had thought he'd find the asari lounging in. He knew the asari to be fickle, but he had thought their agreement meant he'd be able to get to her when the situation warranted it.

"If you _needed_ to talk to Aria, she'd be here," the Sun replied, infuriatingly calm despite the pressure on his neck, "or you'd know where to find her. You don't, so you don't _need_ to talk to her," he finished smugly. "If you _want_—"

"You don't think she'd be interested to know what's happening on the Ward, right under her nose?" Bailey demanded, exasperated. Tayseri was about five minutes from complete anarchy, primed and ready to explode—and what was worse, it wasn't immediately obvious to the military command who had once again declined his request for riot troops with the exception for securing the area used for the funeral service at the gardens. _Least I didn't have to go stand around like an idiot over there._

"You think she doesn't know?" the merc replied—but slightly less confidently. There was the slightest hesitation in his voice, even if his face remained admirably impassive.

Bailey saw his angle. He grabbed the man tighter, pushed him up a little higher, ignoring the fire in his muscles. "Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. You really want to risk that _you're_ the reason she didn't hear about all this shit? We've got gangs running wild committing robberies, rapes, murders, 'Sand moving around like it was space dust, and as if that wasn't enough, all this bizarre fucking vandalism and sabotage of important station functionality, people going missing and never seen again… All while supposedly under her rule."

He saw a glimmer of doubt in the man's eyes—a damn kid he was, thirty if a day. Proud, ambitious…time to move in for the kill. He let the merc slide down the wall and let go of him, pushing himself a step back with a final, carefully measured shove. "Look, you're no two-bit flunky. I wouldn't bother with you if I thought you was just some dumb sack of muscle for hire. She ain't gonna put some useless slob out here even if she's not around. Standards, you know? So I _know_ you aren't just trying to play me because you couldn't get to her anyway. You can get to her when the need arises, that's what she entrusted you with."

"This, son, is that need."

The merc shrugged as if to rid himself of the C-Sec commander, still insolent and arrogant, flashing a carefree grin as he collected himself. He did, however, gesture calm at his two colleagues—uselessly, pinned by Kolyat as they were—magnanimously considering Bailey's plea. "All right, old man, putting yourself on the line like this…maybe your business is important enough. I'll let her be the judge of that," he added with an idiotic wag of his finger.

Grinning inwardly, Bailey forced a begrudgingly appreciative expression. "Fine, thank you," he spat out in what he hoped seemed like genuine gratefulness hidden underneath vehemence.

He signaled Kolyat to stand down with a tiny movement of his feet, though he suspected the drell had already done so. The kid was pretty good about picking up on this stuff. Moments later the merc captain seemed satisfied, waving a disdainful goodbye as he disappeared into the club and one of his underlings took his place in front of Bailey with a smile at least as smug as the captain's had been.

Bailey measured the man with his eyes, trying to decide how far to take his act, when suddenly the merc's eyes widened and his hand shot out to his gun. Bailey pulled out his own pistol fast enough to have it aimed just as the merc's muzzle reached the horizontal. His finger stalled on the trigger just millimeters from firing when he realized the assault rifle wasn't pointing quite at him—the merc was aiming _behind_ him.

"Bro, I ain't the problem," the merc said woodenly, stare glazen, not even turning his weapon toward Bailey despite the pistol in his face.

"Uh, boss…" Kolyat said uncertainly from his position—which wasn't where the guy was aiming, either. Kolyat was on his other side.

"What is it?" Bailey growled, unwilling to lower his guard before somebody started making some sense.

"_Boss,_" Kolyat hissed urgently, causing Bailey to swing around cursing, hoping he wasn't making a mistake with the merc.

"What in the _fuck_…" Bailey asked of no one in particular as he took in the sight of the completely emptied, dark mezzanine around them. Empty but for the six Keepers silently advancing on them in a half-circle that covered all exits.


	42. Chapter 41

_A/N: In case you read the previous chapter before I added the note, there's a new companion piece to Unity in my profile. It's called Coherence._

_Once again, I must thank you for all the comments you take the time to give me. They light up these dark autumn days :)_

* * *

Miranda leaned back against the bed frame to take the weight off her legs for a moment. Pretending to idly thumb her omni, she took the opportunity to look the turian over with Liara having pulled Shepard with her to the doorway as she made to leave. The two were…communing, silent with their foreheads resting against together, noses touching, hands draped around eachother's waists, and generally being disgustingly adorable.

Garrus was sat next to her, back of chair set against the selfsame bed. The turian was looking a little better—a healthier color, too, if Miranda was any judge—after the initial shock had worn off. He was still far from his usual bravado, but he was at least actually speaking in complete sentences—and sitting up a little straighter, mandibles no longer flicking so erratically.

He looked a little different, somehow, but it might simply have been because of the uniform in lieu of the perpetual heavy armoring, presumably another consequence of the his new role. It was a very neat affair, a well-fitted single piece made of something that looked like more like polished, dark deep blue leather than anything else. She'd never studied the turians very intently. It was…exciting to see their true form a little closer. Their alienness was fairly obvious even with the armor on, but seeing the bone ridge collar circling around the head, and how it continued like a raised V down the chest… Then the almost painfully thin waistline, and especially the…what would you call them, spurs perhaps? Unlike the armor, the uniform left them uncovered. They looked like exposed bone rather than horn, and certainly not skin. She wondered if they used to be sharpened—the wicked studs jutting out from the side of his elbows probably had been. They still looked quite pointy.

Garrus noticed her staring. "Like what you see?" he asked archly, turning his head this way and that for a better profile.

_That sounds more like it_, Miranda thought with some satisfaction. "Not in enough trouble with enough women yet?" she asked dryly, but allowed a small smile lift one corner of her mouth as she returned his look, unflinching.

"Think your answer over very carefully, Garrus," Liara called out from the door without looking over, lightly pushing Shepard against the wall and further away from the doorway. Apparently satisfied that the woman was hidden from sight as well as she would be, the asari turned to say goodbye to the others. "I hope you will still be here when I return, Garrus," she said to a nod from the turian. "And you too, of course, Miranda," she continued with a smile.

"I probably won't be," Miranda said, castigating herself for having forgotten to mention it in the chaos earlier. "The training class starts today."

"You're taking a class?" Shepard asked, puzzled behind the nodding asari.

"No, teaching," Miranda said, tossing her head. "I made the mistake of offering to run some sessions to help the medical corps."

"Oh, shut up," Shepard said brightly. "Mistake my ass… You're going to enjoy flaunting your vast knowledge and seeing the norms fight over the crumbs."

"True, but I could do that without having made a commitment," Miranda responded with an inward smile, too used to Shepard's good-natured incisiveness to be fazed. To her surprise, she'd found that she was looking forward to the class. Partly because, yes, the woman was right…she _did_ enjoy imparting knowledge, but also for some more fleeting reason she hadn't quite been able to identify. Perhaps just the novelty of it, the escape.

"Maybe there'll be cute boys."

"Curses, you've discovered my true motivations," Miranda replied acerbically.

"Ooh, mordant."

"Mor… Where did you learn _that_ word?" Miranda asked, having to take a moment to recall its meaning herself.

"The new translator has a thesaurus."

Miranda pinched her eyes shut, unable to contain the small chuckle that shook her chest.

"Well, if there's anything more terrifying than billions-of-years-old machines systemically exterminating all life, it's Eevy Shepard with a vocabulary," Garrus said from his perch. "_When just growling at them isn't enough_," he continued, painting the headline in the air with his hands.

"Watch it, Vakarian," Shepard said, a finger pointed at the turian and grinning, "you're still on probation."

Liara shook her head at the three of them, smiling. "I really must be on my way now. It _is_ good to see you, Garrus."

Shepard leaned in behind her, and gave a light peck on the tip of one of the asari's fringes. Miranda briefly wondered what it actually felt like. She knew it was supposed to be more or less like the tip of a nose, but couldn't imagine it would be _exactly_ the same. She quickly snapped her hand down before it made it too far on its unconscious trajectory toward her own nose, and squeezed her fingers together in a fist. _Bloody hell, Lawson. Maybe she'll let you touch one if you ask nicely._

Liara turned around, then, and silently cupped Shepard's cheek with one hand before touching the door panel with the other. She stepped through the doorway before it was even halfway open, saying something or other to the guards to draw away their attention while the opening remained one.

"Oh, I have a present for you," Garrus said when the door finally closed and Shepard's eyes had stopped tracking the asari on the other side of the wall. "Or, well, it's still back planetside. I didn't want to drag it up here. Wasn't sure how much space you had."

"You do?" Shepard asked, striding lightly over to the bed and taking a seat between Miranda and the turian.

"Yes," Garrus nodded, pulling up a projection from his omni.

Miranda still wasn't quite sure what the almost U-shaped, half-molten black pipe was supposed to be when a grin spread on Shepard's lips. From the image of a turian soldier holding it up, it looked to be somewhere around a meter and a half long, and was obviously quite heavy.

"My Widow!"

"What?" Garrus asked in mock astonishment that left Miranda struggling against a grin. "We thought it was a MAKO turret!"

"I thought I'd never see that thing again," Shepard mused quietly, shoving Garrus at the shoulder. "Lost it in the blast. …I had to grab a helmet and a rifle off a dead guy before I hopped into the ride. What _are_ you doing down on Earth, anyway?" she asked, changing gears. "Doesn't the Primarch need you for your sage advice, or something?"

"He is making some rumblings in that direction," Garrus agreed with a shrug. "Apparently the hierarchs—the other colony primarchs," he clarified as he noted Shepard's confusion, "are causing some issues. But the work down there is important, too."

"I thought Victus was _the_ primarch," Shepard said, sparing Miranda from having to do the same.

"You know each cluster has a primarch, right?" Garrus asked, leaning back against the bed with his elbows propped up. "They're still there. Or new ones, in some cases. Victus only had supremacy for the war…and now there's some question whether he should still be deferred to, or if we go back to peacetime way of doing things."

"Hasn't sounded like we're quite out of the woods yet to me," Shepard said.

"Agreed," Garrus grumbled, "and that's why Victus has a fair amount of support. But, yeah, so far I've been able to mostly stay away from all that."

"Hiding behind an entire platoon of very tall turians dirtside instead, are you?" Shepard asked.

"A division, actually. Half and half humans, now."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Shepard sputtered. "Not that I don't think you can't hack it," she hastened to add. "But…fuck. We're special forces, you and me. Twenty people is a damn _crowd_. You're running t…wenty…_thousand_," she trailed off, awed.

"You do what you have to do," Garrus said evenly, though Miranda thought she heard a tinge of pride. "Besides, only half the regiments are planetside. They're someone else's problem while they're up here. I've noticed something interesting, though," he added, almost more to himself than the two women.

"Interesting?" Miranda asked, filling in for the still-tongue-tied Shepard. It was amusing to see the Commander at loss for words—or growls—for a change. She had to admit she was impressed herself. Garrus was absolute elite where it came to soldiering, and had even been a passable squad runner and XO, but this was something else entirely.

"The troops prefer it down on the ground," Garrus said, looking straight up at her past Shepard. "I think it helps them deal with their own homes, too, Palaven or wherever they happen to be from. Something about working on the planet is different from helping in the fleet. Even if it's not your own people…it still kind of is, you know?"

"Oh, god, I didn't even think—" Shepard said with visible shock, leaning down closer to the turian. "Have you heard anything about your father and sister?"

"No," Garrus replied quietly—continuing a bit stronger as he seemed to remember Miranda was there too. "They _were_ on the Citadel at some point, but the last I heard was Sol saying they were trying to get somewhere else. I guess it's too much to hope that Sol were still in Sol at this point, huh?" he asked with a little more swagger, Shepard smiling and offering some comforting words in return. Liara would definitely be able to help, at least.

Miranda was quiet. As Garrus talked, a shocking realization dawned. She'd all but forgotten about Earth. _Have I been away that long? Long enough that it's just some abstract concept to me? Is _that_ what I've been fighting for, some idea of humanity with scarcely a thought for the reality? Have I been fighting at all?_ She'd been busy, sure, but not _that_ busy. She'd even studiously avoided watching the newscasts where she could recently.

"Miranda? What's wrong?" Shepard asked, craning down to look up into Miranda's downcast eyes and wrenching her from her thoughts.

"I…uh, it's nothing," she replied to a skeptical expression from the woman, realizing she must have been quiet for some time. Even Garrus was eying her with some concern, if she interpreted him correctly. "Do you think…" she started with her thoughts racing, correcting course in the middle. "How bad is the situation?"

Garrus looked over at Shepard, perhaps for confirmation, or perhaps to gauge whether the woman was ready for the information herself. "I've only seen London and some of the island it lies on. It's…bad. If there were more survivors, it'd be hopeless. As it is, the planet's almost unlivable. …I don't know," he said, frustrated and apologetic, "I just…I try to help where I can. Worry about the immediate stuff. Keep people fed, sheltered, safe. Like Shepard said, we're small time. I'm sure you'll be able to put together a much better picture in a matter of hours yourself, with your brain."

Miranda was surprised by the turian's seemingly genuine regard for her abilities, abashed even. "Who handles the coordination for Earth?" she asked quickly, eyes turned at the wall, hoping to fend off this confusion that the sudden return of her faculties must have caused.

"I'm not sure, I'm sorry," Garrus replied with a small shake of his head. "My orders come through the turian command. It might be that older man, Admiral L…something. I know it's not the female one, Bajic, she handles the fleet side. Liara would probably know best."

"Or mom," Shepard interjected.

"Or Admiral Shepard," Garrus said happily, leaning further back on his elbows and turning his head up toward Shepard. "Heard she came through alright. I'm really glad. Didn't I tell you it'd be okay?"

"You did," Shepard said, squeezing the turian's shoulder and smiling as though at some private joke that Miranda didn't understand.

* * *

Kasumi stepped gingerly out of the shuttle, affecting her injuries far more debilitating than what she felt—although, admittedly, not much worse than they _looked_. She'd found herself considering undergoing the procedure for cybernetics here instead of waiting until they got back into civilization. The augments wouldn't be quite as good as could be had, and there was a non-negligible chance that attaching now would cause problems for a second operation. She'd opted to simply have the nerves prepared and external supports for the time being, but as days passed, she was becoming less and less convinced that even the best augments could perform to her standards. And, if she wasn't going to be able to work at her previous level anyway, was there really any point in denying herself the comfort of truly functional limbs now? With Liara's invitation—still astounding to her—she would not want for excitement even if she truly did retire. _Perhaps I should talk to someone before making up my mind…_

Shrugging off her mixture of gloom and excitement, she flashed a winsome smile at the pair of turian bouncers guarding the entrance to the dance club she had sought out. The duo looked at her dubiously, the club mostly frequented by only the most hardcore of dancers in the middle of the day even at best of times…and she certainly didn't look the part. It was a very nice club as far as it went—it had been one of the premier night spots back in the happier times of a few months ago—but an infirm human barely able to walk wasn't their normal custom. The turians chose to give her no trouble, a courtesy she acknowledged with an appropriately large touch transfer when she shuffled past.

She'd arrived on the Citadel a few hours earlier, having arranged a meeting with a few volus and merchant navy representatives to try to locate a ship suitable to their purposes, just as she'd promised Liara and Feron. The meeting—held at a much more upscale venue nearby the music hall a bit further up on the Ward, one she hadn't frequented—had actually gone rather well, her mercantile companions having not just one but several vessels matching her specifications—especially since price was no object. She had arranged inspections upon each, the first ones on crafts already docked on Tayseri later on that afternoon. Between the meetings she had taken the cab down to Club Soda.

She had a second reason for wanting to visit the Citadel…she was worried about her roommate. Jack had barely been in in the last few days—she'd gotten through the few duties she had, as far as Kasumi knew, but beyond that, she'd spent nearly all her time either here or divier bars—sometimes with Vega and Cortez, but ofter by herself or with people Kasumi didn't know. She knew the woman'd been hitting the X heavily, probably booze too…but she hoped nothing worse than that. Kasumi wasn't one to moralize or judge, usually, but she was concerned about the suddenness of the change…it wasn't Jack's normal coping mechanism. With trepidation she stepped in through the inner doors. _Maybe seeing Shep will lift her spirits._

The music and lighting assaulted her as she crossed the threshold into the club proper. She could have adjusted her cybernetics to bypass the visual and auditory noise, and give her a clear and crisp picture of the entire space, but she found it somewhat easier to handle the situation in the ambient light and sound with only the minimum amount of damping just as she had in her thieving days. Even though it may have seemed suboptimal, seeing it as most others did was actually better for assessing her surroundings. When she needed to, she could always flip over to a clearer picture.

She made her way through the place, noting with some surprise the number of people of all species present, dancing their asses off or clustering in groups small and large to socialize at the noise cancellation bubbles liberally spread around the catwalks circling the central dance floors. Perhaps life was normalizing…or perhaps they needed to feel like it was. Ignoring the few who spared glances at her—some interested or outright predatory, most not—she slowly trudged ever further into the place until, after closer to a quarter hour, she noticed a dark corner on the second floor, carefully avoided by most of the other patrons. As she got closer, she let out a breath of relief when she saw Jack slouching down on a couch in the near black, lazily nodding her head to the rhythm, dimly illuminated by a light source in her lap—her omni, Kasumi saw when she came to a halt next to her.

Jack looked up from the omni, sensing a presence. "Kaz? The fuck you doing down here?" she asked, smiling dully and extending her arms as if to invite a hug.

"Came to look for you," Kasumi answered, taking the surprising opportunity to embrace the biotic before sitting down next to her, careful not to disturb the varied glasses piled on the table next to the sofa. "You're all by yourself? Thought you might have Vega in tow."

"Yeah. I guess I told cub scout I didn't want to see his stupid ass today," Jack grumbled dejectedly and with a slight slur. "Might be hanging out with Cortez. Fuck if I know, and f— I don't know where he is, yeah?"

"Alright," Kasumi said obligingly, craning instead to see what it was the woman was doing with her omni. "I thought one was supposed to, you know, dance in places like this. What are you doing back here?"

"Blue's on the news," Jack said with a faraway smile, gesturing the projection larger so that Kasumi could see, too. "Look at that fucking place, can you believe anything on this goddamned raped husk of a station still looks like that?"

Kasumi had to admit that the gardens, labeled as such next to the ANN logo, were in a spectacular condition. The picture from the drone camera was a fairly wide angle but, clued in by Jack, she easily recognized Liara standing in an empty circle with five other asari even before the news anchor made a mention of her.

Suddenly, Jack sat up straight. All bemusement and spaciness gone, sharp as a razor blade in less than a second. "What the fuck is _that_?" she growled just as Kasumi, too, noticed there was something off in the vid feed.

She didn't hear what Jack said next as the station alarms going off drowned all other sound.


	43. Chapter 42

_A/N: there's a bit about SA command structure in the Codex._

* * *

Her body is moving before the wail of the alarm sirens makes it into her consciousness, her instinct carrying her as it so often has. She lets it, trusting it, knowing it serves her well. Time slows down around her. She lithely jumps down from the bedside, landing on the balls of her feet without a sound, knees and hips flexing to absorb the energy. She crouches down slightly, bringing her center of gravity closer to the ground without sacrificing agility. All other lights gone, the room flashes between nearly black and blinding red as the warning lights strobe their pattern while she twists around to scan her surroundings. The sub-second brightness is more than long enough for her eyes to process before the light is stolen away again. The door is closed and its surface seems undisturbed. The lock is sealed, the graphic slowly flickering as the useless but pretty pattern on it crawls in its infinite circle. The walls are intact, the ducts and vents still closed, their screws and rivets solid. Liara's HIs have gone dark but for the scrolling alert text in the same red, flashing whenever the room is dark and darkening when the emergency lights come on. Her desk and cot are in place, not a thing on them out of place. She is glad the asari is ashore, she should be safe there until she can get to her. She lets her knees and ankles make a small dip as she continues turning, ensuring nobody is underneath the few surfaces in the room, nor the bed she had just been sitting on. A reek of ozone and blood claws its way through the door, overwhelming in her nose. All her comms are dead silent.

Miranda is staring at the bed with alarm, still standing tall like a civvie, vitals unprotected. The woman is slowly turning around toward Shepard, only now following her trajectory—too slowly, she thinks, they have to move quick. _Lawson is not prepared for a fight._ No armor, not even the ubiquitous shield generator, no weapons that she can see. Garrus is reaching for something as he pushes himself off the chair in slow motion, his words inaudible through the blare of the sirens. The graphics in his visor flash through, the targeting reticule shifting as data streams scroll by, illegible from the wrong side. His pupils are dilated, his breathing rapid, the slow flicks of his mandibles agitated. His skin seems shiny, coated with a fine layer of sweat. The turian is moving infinitely slower than she is even accounting for her hyper-awareness, almost as though in shock. He, too, is unarmored as well as unarmed, making their situation that much more dire. His natural weapons may be of some use, she reflects eyes scanning the claws and the sawtooth pattern at his elbow. Too dull, never honed, but better than nothing. Why the fuck did they give up all their weapons? It's not _safe_. Grimacing, she steps out of the way of whatever Garrus is reaching for, and takes quick stock of her own preparedness. The red flashing burns behind her eyes, burrows into her brain. She only hopes that it will disorient the attackers equally.

She is still wearing only the gray gym pants and tank top Liara brought her—light and unrestrictive, but useless against any focused attack. Any attack at all, really. She has no proper shoes, barefoot is better than socks. The pile of clothes on the cot is useless, the hooded shirt would only get in the way of movement. Even her helmet is gone. You _always_ wear a helmet, why did they leave her with none? No weapons…they must find weapons. The armory. She doesn't remember where it is, exactly, but this is an alliance ship. There is one, even if it's a few decks away. There will be weaponry, and a helmet. She nods to herself, jaw set, scanning the room for anything that could be improvised into a weapon for the dash to the armory. Leaping over to the desk, she throws open the drawers, sneering in disgust at the lack of anything useful. Twisting back around, she grimly sets her sights on the legs of the chairs lining the walls until she sees something on the bedside table. She runs back between Miranda and Garrus, both engaged in what looks like an agitated argument, Miranda with her hand on Garrus' shoulder, pointing somewhere and shouting, the turian yelling back even as he frantically tries to get through to someone on his comms. She ducks below the arm and orders them to stop arguing and focus even as she reaches into the glass jar to wrap her fingers around a long, greenish-brown piece of glass, there's no time for it. The edge of the glass cuts her finger as she slides her hand in the jar along it. With a gritted wince, she snaps her hand back. Grinning, she licks the coppery blood off her fingertip and reaches for the pillow casing to wrap around the makeshift blade. Prying the casing, she shrugs off Garrus' rough palm on her shoulder, shouting for him to look for something to use or to look after Miranda. Not wanting to cut herself pulling the blade out, she sweeps the jar off the table and into the wall, smashing it into tiny fragments. She crouches down to the debris, reaching for the glass blade, carefully but swiftly twisting the fabric around the base for a handle.

Satisfied, she turns around crouched to look up at Garrus with her new dagger in hand. The turian is still arguing with her, both he and Miranda wanting them to stay in the room if she hears him right through the infernal noise, _disobeying_. They don't understand. Fucking disobeying. She knows Garrus would not normally hesitate, but the shock is writ large in his expression and his gestures, close to panic. A shell-shocked turian will just get in the way, she knows. His training might come through when they met their enemy if she took him along, but she could never forgive herself if she got him hurt despite knowing better. Nodding grimly, she orders him to stay in the room with Miranda until she comes back with weapons and armor, quietly hoping that he'll have gotten his head straight by then. She checks her omni feeds again. There's nothing but static.

She can't hear anything beyond the door, not through the klaxon and her thumping heart. The ozone is stronger. She settles against the frame of the opening, slightly crouched still, and quickly slaps the panel. The door slides open, revealing the corridor outside bathed in the same black-and-red strobe assaulting her eyes and brain inside the room. She switches to night vision, but the flashing is only slightly dampened, leaving her cursing quietly as she peers out into the hallway. There's nothing toward the bow, shadows flashing into life and swallowed by the darkness again. She turns and ducks out slightly, one leg inside the room and the other in the hallway, in a low crouch to minimize the target she makes. Immediately before her she sees the shape of an asari standing right next to the doorway, slowly turning toward the opening door, eyes wide in shock. It takes her fractions of a second to classify her as a friend—she must be one of the guards assigned to the cabin. The other guards are nowhere in sight, probably helping defend against the attack. The asari stares at her, mouth opening uselessly as Shepard grabs her by the utility belt strapped around her chest and pulls her down and into the doorway and on the floor with her. What the fuck are these people _thinking_? The girl doesn't answer when she tries to press for some kind of an intelligent answer on what's going on. Garrus takes a step closer, trying to help, but she knows they don't have time for this. Not even a fucking helmet. She reaches over and grabs the asari's sidearm hoping she'll be able to use it, roughly pushing her further into the room with an order to stay in with Garrus and Miranda. With a final look at the room, Miranda now frenetically working with her omni for communications and Garrus reaching down to help the asari up, she tells them to stay safe until she comes back.

She slips through the doorway and slams the panel behind her again to close the door. Taking two breaths to settle herself she pushes off and heads into the disorienting flashing of the corridor in front of her, aiming for the clerical console visible at the end of the hallway, padding silently but quickly in her bare feet, shoulder brushing along the wall, the reassuring weight of the Predator in her hand as she counts down the seconds until she can attempt to override its user assignment.

* * *

"Huntress Vanna, welcome!" Hannah greeted the asari warmly. She hoped she'd gotten it right, recalling that maidens typically went by their profession. Logical enough, since there was no need to differentiate sexes, and they hadn't 'earned' an honorific yet. She briefly wondered about how matrons were supposed to be addressed, never having met one as far as she knew—there were very few out and about. Sure, she'd seen the occasional one with little ones in tow, but not that many, not even the few times she'd been on the Citadel. Hannah's theory was that they mostly nested among their own, only emerging again in their matriarch years.

"Eris, please, Admiral," the asari said smiling brightly as she stepped onto the slightly raised floor around the captain's workstation in the middle of the CIC. She extended her arm as though she'd used the human greeting all her life, somewhat of a rarity in an alien.

"Very well, Eris," Hannah agreed, taking the offered hand but also clasping the asari's upper arm just above the elbow with her left hand in an ad-hoc hybrid of the common greetings of the two species. "I was going to insist on having you call me Hannah anyway, in private at the very least. You've earned my eternal gratitude," she continued with a smile.

"I'm only too glad to have helped," Eris replied, returning Hannah's smile. "And help I did. Others did all the work."

"Nonsense," Hannah said. She thought she could detect the faintest darkening of the asari's cheeks, contrasting with the easygoing confidence the maiden otherwise exuded. It was a bit hard to tell, truthfully, her skin being an absolutely incredible shade of deep, deep ultramarine. Thinking back, Eris was by far the darkest of the asari Hannah had ever seen. Just before she with some embarrassment caught herself staring entirely too intently, Hannah thought she also saw the barest outlines of facial markings etched in another abyssal blue—mostly around the eyes, not so unlike Matriarch Lidanya's pattern though far, far less obvious. Turning her gaze before the asari thought her rude, she finally released her hand and gestured around the CIC—noting a few curious looks in their direction. "In any case, welcome to the _Orizaba_. I'm glad that you're here. This," she continued turning toward her XO, "is my Executive Officer and dear friend, Rear Admiral Amita Chandara."

"Pleased to meet you, Huntress," Amita said as she leaned over from her station to shake hands with the asari. "You're a bit of a hero around these parts, you know."

"Just did my job, Rear Admiral," the asari said with a wide smile, confident again.

Hannah laid her hand lightly on Amita's shoulder. "Would you be so kind as to look after my fleet while I go and have a bite with Eris?" she inquired.

"Yes, ma'am."

Flashing a quick, private, reciprocated grin at Amita, Hannah leaned down to her panel and tapped the intercom for the CIC and operative staff in other parts of the ship. {XO has the deck and tactical,} she intoned evenly before straightening back up and gesturing Eris to walk with her through the bridge and toward the doorway leading up to the elevators.

{This is XO Chandara, I have the deck and tactical,} Amita recited the confirmation over the intercom as they made their way through the vast array of stations and personnel, Eris glancing around curiously.

"Have you been on a human ship before?" Hannah asked, nodding in response to the various salutes thrown in their direction as they passed.

"Not a military one, m— Hannah," the asari replied brightly. "It's not so unlike our smaller dreadnoughts, actually. You build a little more…sparse, I suppose. I hate to play to the stereotype, but I feel our ships are slightly more…airy. This is clearly an instrument of war—and I mean that with utmost respect."

"_Orizaba_ is one of the newer generation, so I think it may have had some influences," Hannah admitted with a smile as they reached the elevators. "But I do agree, it's a little utilitarian."

"I feel I must apologize for not having thanked you in person earlier," Hannah said apologetically when they emerged from the elevator into the relative privacy of the Officers' Deck and headed for her quarters. "It has–"

"Nonsense, if I may borrow a term," Eris cut in. "No need to apologize, I understand. I haven't had much spare time myself and I haven't been stationed all the way over here the entire time," she said with a grin. "Terea—my sister," she clarified though Hannah did recall her, "she's been to visit the rachni, but I've not really been to see anyone except for Grunty."

Tactfully biting her tongue, Hannah tapped the panel to open her door and bid the asari enter. "I'm glad to have this chance now," she said continuing her earlier thought as the two approached the table that Jonsson had dutifully laid out, "but I must admit I was a bit surprised to hear of your arrival—I imagined you were strictly Search and Rescue currently—what are you doing with the relief fleet, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Ah, I'm not exactly with the fleet," Eris replied. "I was actually hoping I might hitch a ride back with your fleet tomorrow?"

"Of course. Amita will get you a bunk," Hannah said with a nod, if a little surprised, tapping the message to her XO as she spoke. "You didn't come here just to see _me_, did you?"

"Ah, no," the asari said with a grin that almost got Hannah to burst out laughing. "Did you know there is a planet named after me here?" she continued with incredibly contagious enthusiasm. "It's not really a planet, I guess. Or, well, humans don't consider it one anyway. But it was discovered right around the time my parents got together! _And_ it was closest in its orbit to Sol just a few years before I entered fleet service—tell me, can that be a coincidence? It's almost as though this was destined!"

"Perhaps the universe decided another Eris was needed with the one here leaving our proximity?" Hannah asked, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"Yes!" Eris exclaimed before being reduced to giggles that Hannah gladly joined in. "No, but seriously, it's a neat coincidence," the asari continued, "and I figured I should at least go take a look since I'm here."

"I can respect your scientific curiosity," Hannah said with a grin of her own. "How was it? I take it that's where you've been today?"

"Yes, I wrangled one of the science vessels to take me. It was…well, it was a small planet. No signs of life, I'm sad to inform you," Eris replied with mock seriousness. "Scooped a piece to take home, though."

"Where _is_ home?" Hannah asked out of habit, regretting the question even before she'd finished asking it.

"I…ah, I'm from Illium originally. Massla," Eris said with a small smile still. "It's one of the bigger farming cities, near the south pole. Nowadays…well, don't have much of a home other than the _Ascension_. Used to stay on the Citadel quite a bit earlier, and maybe the occasional special assignment."

"I know how that goes," Hannah said with a wan smile, deciding against asking about the rest of Eris' family directly. To her great relief she hadn't detected the all-too-familiar sadness in the asari's response, but didn't want to stir up feelings in case she was wrong after all. "I'm sorry, I'm keeping you…please tuck in," she continued, noticing what she interpreted as a hungry glint in the asari's eye. "Looks like the kitchen got your food params, being that we have all kinds of ingredients here…"

They had made it to dessert, talking about this and that—mostly about the current events, the situation with the relays and how unlikely it would be that the salarians or anyone else would be coming through Charon, but also of their service histories—when the warning light strips running along the edges of the ceiling and the floor lit up yellow, immediately followed by a three-beat warning chime coming on, stopping both of them mid-bite. Moments later their utensils lay forgotten on abandoned plates, both already up and striding toward the door when Amita's calm, even voice came on the intercom.

{This is XO Chandara. Readiness two. Report to stations. Readiness two. Possible imminent hostile action.}


	44. Chapter 43

Bailey pushed Kolyat and the asari roughly down into the staircase opening and jumped in after them even as a hail of bullets struck only a few meters off to the side. _You're an eternal optimist, Armando Bailey,_ he thought as he landed roughly on his elbow on his still-healing side, _it only took about_ three _minutes for everything to go straight to hell._

{Commander, we've got the Keeper advance halted at the Gardens, looks like they're retreating!}

{Fine, Sergeant,} Bailey huffed into his comm through gritted teeth as he gingerly tried to ascertain whether he'd reopened any of his wounds. {Cover the civilians until they're evacuated, do you understand? You're _not_ to go after the Keepers until those people are secured.}

{Got it, Commander—}

Bailey ducked to give Kolyat room to aim over the edge of the floor the staircase intersected, the asari hunkered down between them. {And keep an eye on your back! Any of the gangs or the rioters might think that the Gardens are a pretty damn good target. Out,} he grunted his final order, interrupting the turian in the other end.

{Understood, out.}

With a croak Bailey flicked the channel off, and rose up to cover Kolyat while the drell ducked back down to cover to cool off his pistol. He'd gotten about as much practice shooting in the last few days as he had in his entire career in law enforcement, but Bailey still wished he'd spent a few more days at the range as he tried to estimate the lead needed to take down the human or asari Sixth Warder dashing between two pillars, trying to get into a flanking position.

Trying to avoid showing himself Bailey waited as long as he dared to try to line the shot the best he could, until he _had_ to squeeze off—and saw the projectile impact the runner in the shoulder. The shields seemed to absorb most of the damage, but the impact threw the banger out of balance, the shoulder flying back and exposing the entire torso as a wide target. Bailey didn't miss, the last two of another four shots burrowing through what remained of the shields into the light armor and flesh beneath. His silent prayer as the figure slumped to the ground was cut short by a heavy thunk that threw him out of balance as a shot directly from the side hit his shields and the barrier the asari was trying to maintain around him.

"This is _not_ a good spot, boss!" Kolyat yelled in his ear, moving in front of the asari to shield her from this new direction of attack even as he opened fire toward the assailant.

The drell wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. Reeling from the shot and trying to shake off the prickly numbness from his arm, he furiously searched through his small map projection for a way out. It seemed an awful lot like they were just thoroughly pinned down, though. The plaza above was crawling with enemies—fortunately mostly concentrated around what used to be a fountain on the far side, but they had covered both the other exits at this level and both the ramps and staircases leading up to the circular walkway leading out toward the shopping district. Bailey and his companions had only happened on this descending staircase through sheer luck when the asari had noticed it, back against the same low wall that the two men were leaning into for cover as she had been. He'd still not figured whether it actually led anywhere they wanted to go. Down was a bad bet in general…the Warders would almost certainly have all the underground facilities covered and he had no idea how far down it might take them. _Goddamned old fool. You knew it was a bad idea to come down without a guide, you_ knew _it._

The Suns had made quick work of the Keepers at the club when the creatures had continued their menacing approach unrelentingly. Gunfire in his ears Bailey had managed to shout a warning on the C-Sec general channel, only to hear reports of Keeper attacks everywhere—mostly at strategic locations, or against important people. Not least was the service at the Gardens. By the reports there might have been as many as a thousand of the things making a beeline for all the VIPs bunched up there. For all their numbers, the Keepers seemed to lack any long-range weaponry and always tried to get to grappling range, which did help fend off individual ones. Only with the massive amount of C-Sec and military forces they had been able to apparently stop a wave of that size, though.

It was fortunate for the VIPs, anyway. The rest of the station was basically completely uncovered because of the security requirements, only half a skeleton crew trying to keep things running until they could reclaim the officers back for real work. It had taken literally only minutes after the stationwide alarms went off for the Sixth Ward gang to try to reassert itself over the Marrak section of the Ward, the area around the Trestia. Things had spiraled out of control quickly thereafter, various rival gangs somehow thinking that this was a good time to sort out their differences and carve out new territories. The gangbangers were quickly engaged by the various now paramilitary and heavily armed neighborhood watches, joined by rioting or panic-stricken crowds, and eventually at least one of the larger krogan clans—maybe thinking that they were being targeted in Sol, too, if he was charitable…

The Suns had wanted nothing to do with it—the pissant running the squad was exactly as much of a candy-ass as Bailey had pegged him as—and had summarily locked themselves in the club after driving out the few patrons at gunpoint—including the squeaking asari clutching onto Kolyat's hips and struggling between the urge to run and the somewhat more sensible plan of trying to stick it out with two people ostensibly on the side of the good guys. With Bailey staying in place at the mezzanine in front of the club, trying to get some kind of a sense of what was going on elsewhere on the station, the rest of the bar-goers had dispersed into various directions just before the crew of about twenty Sixth Warders had charged into the plaza in their amok. Bailey wasn't sure they'd even noticed they started shooting at C-Sec when they had opened fire, but knowing the type of people involved, they well might have.

Bailey, and Kolyat dragging the asari along, had managed to get away from them briefly as they dashed down and away from the mezzanine toward the Trestia Tower Plaza where—as he would've realized if he'd just stopped to think first, Bailey cursed—another handful of Warders had cut them off from the other direction, leaving them pinned in a tight spot, initially covered from both sides. It was only through their complete lack of tactical understanding that they'd broken their ideal flanking and converged into a single group instead. Only now, after a few minutes of heated exchange of fire, had they realized to send people to—

There! He saw a quick glint of light off something moving behind the staircase leading up to the next level just before another spray of shots chewed through the staircase and balustrade the trio was huddled in. A glance from the corner of his eye told him the drell had seen it too as they both opened up at the same time, peppering the ascending staircase until a distant growl told them they might've gotten the assailant there. He turned cautiously to scan over the other side of the plaza where the main concentration of the Warders were, only to have his breath catch in his throat as he saw the flare of a rocket launcher in the distance. He pushed with all his strength into a forward jump, trying to pull both the drell and the asari down toward the bottom of the staircase with him.

_Jesus_ fucking _christ_!

Through the wildly tumbling and painfully sharp world of uncontrolled descent he felt the incredible heat explode above them and the sharp thunks of shrapnel and debris hitting his shields even as the pressure shoved him down into the ground, his vision flashing orange before everything was covered in thick gray smoke as they came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.

{Commander Bailey?

Commander Bailey? This is the asari rescue shuttle _Halcyon Tempest-R4_. Respond,} a soft voice spoke through slight packet loss on his comm and a keening ringing in his ears.

Struggling to get oriented, weakly rising to all fours and trying to stay upright through the swaying his balance did nothing to correct, he squinted to see through the fine dust and smoke covering everything. Fumbling around for Kolyat and their asari charge, and simultaneously trying to cough out enough to be able to speak, he finally managed to form a sentence. {This is…_cough_…Bailey, please tell me you're close and coming to collect an old fool?}

{We have your location,} the shuttle pilot responded after a short pause. {Is the plaza clear for landing?}

{No!} Bailey shouted quickly, just as the asari—seemingly mostly unhurt—tapped him on the shoulder asking if he was alright. {The plaza is in enemy control, with heavy weaponry. Repeat, do not approach the plaza!}

{Copy. Stand by, trying to locate an alternative.}

"Kneeling by, but whatever," Bailey grumbled as he assured the asari he was fine. Kolyat was starting to make noises on the other side of the stairs and the two soon located the drell, his leg painfully bent and likely broken. With effort, they got Kolyat upright and supported between themselves, the asari trying to help with her biotics too. As Bailey tried to scan around them—it looked like maybe a tunnel between a garage and a building or a mall, or possibly between two buildings—he suddenly noticed that the idiots above had ceased the firing that had continued unabated and useless throughout. He swore quietly to himself and the two threw worried looks in his direction just as he heard the Warders scream out as he imagined them rushing forward toward the staircase. He aimed his gun up at the opening above, shouting for Kolyat or the asari to try to figure out which way to go.

{Are you above or below the plaza?}

{Below, short stairs at the end opposite to Trestia,} Bailey grunted, his stomach dropping, his limbs tingling and sweat drenching him in the few seconds he held his shaky aim while the shuttle crew tried to locate a landing spot.

{Head rotationwise, that way leads to a smaller apartment building. We will land on the top, and a team will head down to meet you. Route transmitted to you. Out.}

Bailey didn't bother answering, firing a spray of bullets at the first shapes to make it to the top of the stairs instead.

* * *

The world was a better place for Kaz, Jack thought as the woman leaned in to check her over for injuries. Maybe she wasn't everyone's ideal of morality, but she was a _good person_ all the same. She shook her head to indicate she was okay. If she couldn't manage good herself, at least she could make fucking sure that no harm came to those who could. She let out a small breath, felt the shielding barrier around them like a living being. Gently, she got it to contract closer but channeled the same energy in, shaping it into a stronger bond. She grinned tiredly at Kaz, receiving a stifled chortle in return. The air vibrated with her laughter, waves rippling into the distance and themselves rippling as the bullets flew through them trailing their shadows behind.

She wasn't quite sure who was shooting, and didn't care. Kaz would make sure she was pointed at the right people, and she'd tear them apart. Or Keepers…they hadn't met any yet, but there would be plenty where Blue was. Looking up at the woman for confirmation, Jack closed her eyes for a moment, _feeling_ the battlefield. Kasumi's whispered instructions oriented her and with a final nod she pushed Kaz down to cover and pulled the barrier entirely around herself. She sprang up, twisting around mid-air, her barrier shrugging off the few bullets the enemies—a turian on the left, a human on the right—managed to direct at her before Kaz' covering fire got them to hesitate and she propelled herself into a charge at the turian still slightly visible, her hands wreathed in the fire of the gods. She reached the turian—a merc of some kind, she saw—just as he peeked out from behind his pillar, her left arm arcing through the air with all her own strength and that of her biotics swinging forward. Her fist plunged through the edge of the pillar and directly into his neck just below the mandible, continuing without so much as slowing down as it crushed whatever bone and tissue lay in its path, flinging the turian and his lolling, barely attached head into the wall a few meters away. Letting her momentum carry her, she turned her body along with her arm and projected a cascade of power at the human still turning toward her. The biotic energy surging forward bent him back, snapping his spine below the chest, and then withdrew like a wave, crushing his backward-pointing limbs into themselves and almost folding the torso vertically as the chest cavity was compressed. The shapeless bag of bones hit the ground just as she did. She rolled over her shoulder and into a low kneel, hand down on the ground to slow herself down—and she was almost successful, but ran out of space, crashing her ass and back painfully into the wall despite her barrier.

Through the sharpness of the ache the throbbing glow around the world receded for a moment as she scanned her surroundings, seeing the remaining human-looking merc stand up from the hiding place neither she nor Kaz had seen, and twist around to run away as fast as he could. Her lips twisted into a sneer, the energy surged through her, she dug her feet in to take her directly into—through—his back when she charged…but then it was her running away, she felt the panic, the hope. She stayed still. She breathed out, through painfully clenched teeth, letting the energies ebb back into herself as she slowly straightened up, letting herself sink into the peace she felt.

"…Eww."

She felt Kasumi's hand on her shoulder, and opened her eyes. The glow was back, Kaz' already angelic features haloed in a beautiful blue and white right next to her as the woman surveyed the damage in the slightly curving walkway they were standing on.

"You still okay?" Kaz asked turning back to her, concerned. "How long can you keep up? The broadcasts are saying they still haven't been able to evacuate the Gardens…we've got at least another twenty minutes to cover before we get there."

Jack knew that the feeling of lightness throughout her body was not fully real, but she felt completely as one with her biotics…where they normally tore through her body, it was gentler now, like water or the wind…easier than she ever remembered. She felt as though she could fly if she wanted to. She just nodded, trying to put the worried Kasumi at ease…the woman was nearly trembling. Jack reached over and pulled her closer, sharing her peace.

"Okay, let's go," Kaz said with a heavy sigh as she drew away a few seconds later. But she did smile, smile for a moment before her eyes widened as she glanced over Jack's shoulder.

Jack turned around, energy flaring out like wings and converging into her arms. Kaz took a step back, lifting her pistol. The Keeper was advancing directly toward them, slowly but deliberately. The two of them watched in amazement for a split-second before Kaz remembered herself and aimed…but something wasn't right.

"Wait a sec, Kaz," Jack said, lifting her hand to halt the woman before she took the shot.

She knew she could crush one of these things like the bug it resembled…it wasn't a threat to her. Still, it kept moving forward, unrelenting. Was it alive? Thinking? Did it feel? She looked at it, at its giant eyes, trying to understand why they were attacking. It didn't even have a weapon.

A few meters away, its pace slowing ever so slightly, the Keeper suddenly lifted one of its upper arms. Jack flinched, her barrier flared, but she settled herself…maybe she could understand why the Keepers wanted to harm them. Talk to them. She took two steps forward, and the Keeper walked straight into her, and stopped. She stared into its giant bug eyes.

Nothing. She saw nothing. _Maybe they just need a hug too,_ she thought with a snort of laughter, and hugged the thing, arms and hands flaring with poised energy to rend the thing in two.

"Jack…" Kaz said nervously, circling around for a clear shot.

A moment they stood there, Jack with her arms wrapped around the short torso of the creature, and it in turn pushing against her as though it were still walking.

Then, it laid its lower arms to rest at its sides, and circled the upper pair around Jack.

* * *

_{…all mobile patients into the Common Rooms. All non-critical patients who cannot be moved should have one assistant in their rooms. All critical patient care continues as usual. All remaining free staff, report to your supervisors or take your assigned readiness positions,}_ Commander Gek continued her report over the intercom.

Sienni shook her head to clear it and found herself looking up at the turian general, his features slightly obscured by the lights up in the ceiling behind him.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a raspy voice as he helped her upright and guided her to lean against the bedside for support.

"Y—yeah, I think I'm fine," Sienni mumbled, a little embarrassed at the ease she'd been stripped of her weapon. She glanced at the general and the doctor underneath her brows. "Can someone tell me what in the name of the goddess just happened?"


	45. Chapter 44

"This is exactly why I need to keep an eye on you!"

"What?" Liara shouted indignantly across the doorway, back against the wall. "You can hardly blame _me_ for this!"

"For someone so blameless—" Aethyta yelled from the other side over the rattle of gunfire. "—you end up getting shot at a lot!"

"I—" Liara started, trying to form a reasonable counterargument until she just huffed angrily and crossed her arms, refusing to look over at her father.

"For fuck's sake, you're using ammo like you'd never heard of overheating!" Aethyta yelled at the two commandos ostensibly protecting them in the doorway, when Liara stayed mute. "Are you actually even aiming at a target out there? Do they teach you _anything_ these days? Give me that," she snapped at the elder of the pair, snatching away her rifle and shoving her out of the way as she herself stepped into the doorway and took careful aim before letting out a couple controlled bursts. "See?" she asked loudly without losing her aim, "Easy. Why don't you practice with your pistol or something?"

"We are not even being shot at," Liara finally called back when it became obvious that her father was not going to return the commando's weapon. Apparently she had also realized it, and was dejectedly shooting with her pistol instead.

"That's syntactics!" Aethyta said between bursts.

"…Semantics, you mean?" Liara asked loudly.

"No—" her father replied, dropping to a knee to eject her thermal sink and reaching over to obtain another one from the other commando's thigh bandolier, eliciting a startled gasp. She seemed to have a difficult time detaching the clip, fumbling around as she was. "—Syntactics. Semantics is meaning."

"Fine, but the point stands, Father," Liara said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "_We_ are not being shot at. Only the Keepers are!"

"_What?_" Aethyta yelled as she gleefully let out another burst.

"I said—" Liara started shouting back, but trailed off realizing the futility of the effort. "Nevermind," she muttered mostly to herself.

Satisfied that between the three of them her father and the two commandos surely had their location secured, she turned her attention to her omni for a time—once again scolding herself for not having installed the long-range amp. She had only managed to get one message through in response to Kasumi with the networks completely flooded. Wide-area communications on the Citadel were an unsolved problem still, for during the latter takeover the Reaper armies—or in some cases likely the defenders themselves—had destroyed much of the antennae and hardlines supporting communications across and throughout the over-forty-kilometer-long Wards. Quite a few entities—including the news networks—had the equipment to broadcast out and were doing so, but it wasn't really possible to get back through to them. C-Sec and the few military units had their own infrastructure and more powerful equipment, but others were reliant on the temporary network systems that had toppled over the load of everyone trying to connect to everyone else at the same time. _Reliant if they were foolish enough not to take a perfectly reasonable small contraption that would have avoided the problem altogether,_ she thought bitterly. _Too concerned about wanting to appear presentable like some stupid, vain socialite!_ Shepard would surely have admonished her for her negligence. _Although she did say I looked especially pretty,_ she thought with an unconscious smile that turned into a sad shake of her head. _By the Goddess, Liara T'Soni, this is how you get into all this trouble. Shepard surely presumed you had all appropriate equipment and did not patronize you by asking…_

The sudden cessation of gunfire brought her back into the present. "What?" she called out to something Aethyta was saying, a little too loudly now that it was relatively quiet again.

Her father had gotten up from her earlier firing position, and shoved the rifle back into the commando's hands with a disapproving look. "Tsk. You on the other hand," she said turning to the younger of the pair, "are pretty good." She nodded approvingly—winning a cautious smile in return.

"Did you say something to me?" Liara tried again, patiently.

"Ah, yes," Aethyta said with a grin. "Sounds like we've got them on the run! They've retreated away from the grounds…we should be able to evac soon. We should get out there right away," she added as an afterthought but a little more seriously.

Liara nodded, risking a peek out of the door. It seemed that aside from sporadic bursts, the fighting was over for now. Soldiers and guards of various persuasions were cautiously emerging from whatever recesses or covers they had taken, advancing toward the edge of the promontory where the frontline troops had stationed themselves. Their own doorway was nearly all the way to the edge of the fields in the U-shaped main building of the Gardens. It had evidently afforded a very good view of the advancing enemy.

"If you, you know, want some private lessons for…military stuff," Aethyta was saying to the commando she'd been complimenting, "give me a call. Any time," she continued with an unseemly leer.

"Father! This is a _funeral_," Liara squeaked, mortified. Muttering an embarrassed apology without looking at the commandos, she took Aethyta by the arm and led her back out to the large courtyard, half-seriously judging the risk of getting in the middle of a new fight a better option than letting her father arrange a…date.

"What?" Aethyta asked as they emerged into the open air. "You know your—"

"I would rather _not_ know, Father," Liara snapped with a little more exasperation than she meant to let show, and set her jaw to avoid further truths. Spotting Lidanya stepping out of another doorway a little further down, she turned and strode toward the matriarch.

Aethyta grabbed her by the arm in turn. "No," she hissed with an intent look, "let her come to you."

"Why would she—" Liara started, only to be interrupted by her father's nod toward Lidanya. As Liara turned to look over her shoulder, she saw the matriarch start in their direction, her guards and a few other dignitaries in tow.

* * *

"Uhh, Kaz…?" Jack asked out of the corner of her mouth, still as a statue otherwise. "Is this thing hugging me?"

Kasumi didn't know whether to laugh or shoot. The look on Jack's face was priceless…the entire scene was. The strange, insectoid Keeper had indeed wrapped its upper pair of arms around the woman in a manner that quite looked like an embrace, and now it was just standing there, perfectly still. Its eyes may or may not have been looking at either one of them—there was no way to tell. The Keepers had been baffling creatures to begin with, and then this attack…she was almost certain it would be better to take the damn thing out even if it wasn't aggressive now. "_Chikusho._"

"Not helping."

"I…uh…it kinda looks like it is," Kasumi offered weakly. "What happens if you let go of it?" she asked—or instructed, really. She took a step back, quickly scanning around them to ensure nobody else was creeping up on them, and hefted her pistol again after having let it drop slightly out of sheer astonishment.

Jack glanced over at her, and let go of the creature. The telltale purple flares coursed up and down her arms and back, the power ready to be unleashed at any moment. For two or three tense seconds, the Keeper did not move—and then it, too, let its arms drop to its sides. They waited a little while, but it didn't move. Jack took a step back…and still it remained. They looked the same as ever…bulbous lower part with the four legs with little claw feet, a torso with two pairs of arms, that silly little backpack thing, and the head with those weird eyes attached to a long neck.

"Why isn't it attacking?" Kasumi wondered out loud. "Or doing _something_…"

"Maybe they weren't at all," Jack said in a lilting voice, moving around in a little circular pattern, dipping down every now and then. "Did any of those fuckers on the radio actually get bitten or whatever?" she continued, jaw clenching and relaxing.

"I'm not sure…" Kasumi said trailing off. Surely they had. They had to have…they couldn't just have _assumed_ the creatures were hostile— _I did,_ she cut herself off, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to think through their options.

"It's not really doing anything," Jack mused a moment later, closer again to the creature when Kasumi opened her eyes. The biotic was, evidently, trying to get it to mirror other movements but with little success. "It smells weird. It smells…blue. Not green. It smelled green before."

Kasumi ignored the woman's synesthesia, trying to justify to herself why they should eliminate the Keeper, instead—and failing. "We should probably tell someone," she finally said.

"That's a brilliant idea!" Jack yelped in response, seemingly without sarcasm, and started tinkering with her omni as the creature looked on, possibly trying to get through the comms.

It hadn't been an easy trip up to this point, what with her limited mobility and Jack high as a kite. She'd shot off a message to Liara—and Vega and Steve in case they were down on the Citadel too—but the comms had gone down before she had received any kind of a reply. The network broadcasts were getting through still, of course, but they contained little useful information aside from which areas to especially stay away from. Jack had been almost forcibly insistent on going to get to their 'Blue', and Kasumi hadn't dared let her out of her sights in the state the biotic was in. They'd been beset twice by mercs like these, once by a heated gang fight, and once by a roiling mob of more or less ordinary people looting and rampaging through the Ward. Even with her guidance, they'd only barely avoided the worst of trouble.

She'd liberated a pistol from the first group that had had the misfortune of not taking her warnings to heart… Jack's biotics had been strange and unpredictable. On one hand, it seemed the woman had absolutely no idea what she was doing—certainly nothing like what Kasumi was used to seeing from her—but on the other, she did it incredibly well and came through almost as though by accident. Still, her completely haphazard bouncing around might have gotten her in deep shit more than once had Kasumi not been there for backup. And now Kasumi wasn't at all sure how long Jack could keep it up…The woman must have been wasting tons of power, and she wasn't sure if the biotic had been eating or sleeping recently. Probably not.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Kasumi glanced around again only to find the Keeper still standing in place, and Jack fumbling around with her omni. "Anything?" she asked, receiving a languid shake of head in return.

"Damn it," she swore, hunching down into a crouch as deep as her leg strut allowed. "We might be able to get to short-range comm distance to Liara in about ten minutes," she mused out loud as Jack knelt down beside her without taking her eyes off the Keeper. "But that might mean a lot of dead Keepers, or a lot of distraction from trying to calm down this…civil disorder."

Jack nodded sagely—or so Kasumi thought until with a start she tried to reach the woman before she tilted forward and simply collapsed on the ground, face first. She turned Jack to her side, her stirring panic only quieting when she felt a steady pulse and deep if slightly fitful breaths. She was almost certain the biotic had just passed out from the strain, finally, but she wasn't quite sure how bad that was in itself. Could she maybe go into some kind of an energy shock? The woman's skin was a little clammy, but she probably would've been perspiring earlier anyway. She fumbled around her pockets for some 'gel pouches, tearing one open and slathering it on liberally to staunch the worst of the bleeding from the forehead, brow, nose, and lips, and wiping off the blood the best she could. _Working alone is so much easier._ She triggered her cloak on with a silent thanks to Grunt, wanting every advantage she could if someone did happen to arrive in the small area where they were visible.

Certain that Jack was secure and well enough for the moment she looked up and around, trying to think of something she could do aside from getting on the short-range comms and trying to get someone to believe her—while not drawing any malicious elements their way. The Keeper, at least, was still— _Waait…_ It was closer. It had moved a little closer in their direction. Not close enough to hover on top of them, but it definitely had not remained where it had been. Impassive it did still remain, though, vindicating their decision in her heart at least. She wasn't quite sure whether it could detect her somehow through the cloak. She didn't think so.

With a jolt of elation, she spotted something as her eyes scanned over the corpse of the turian a few meters away. A crude comm array with a _visible_ microphone peeked out from one edge of the collar of his beat-up armor. Normally, she'd not have looked twice, but right now an ancient _military_ armor might actually be useful. She pushed herself up with a pained groan—today had _not_ been good for her recovery—and padded over to the body. She took one last look around and, satisfied nobody had approached, knelt down again. She unceremoniously pushed the head out of the way and leaned close to the comm microphone. "Emergency," she enunciated carefully. She couldn't remember specific armor models or anything like that, but this looked like a used military piece…and they _usually_ allowed emergency messaging even from unrecognized voice patterns. She let out a breath of relief when a small blue light strip lit up next to the mic, hopefully indicating that it had initialized the emergency channel.

Several seconds passed…but then, a voice crackled through an unseen speaker somewhere in the collar. {Mattor? Geers? Bruinck said you were dead, some fucking crazy biotic? Should've known that chickenshit would run away and abandon his team,} a male—probably human—snarled.

Kasumi took a deep, quiet breath, trying to hit the right tone. {He was right. And you'll be dead too, unless you listen real close,} she said, her voice a good imitation of carefree, manic belligerence in her own ears at least. A little sing-songy, but not too much.

{Who is this?} the man asked after a pregnant pause. Kasumi heard a little hesitation.

{Why, I'm the psychotic biotic…and I'm coming for you, because I need access to the fucking airwaves. And you've got it,} she bluffed. She wasn't sure why she was trying to mimic Jack…the man didn't know her voice from Eve.

{You don't know where I am,} the man said, confirming her guess about at least some level of comm equipment she didn't have.

{You wanna bet these amateurs don't have enough on them for me to find out?} Kasumi asked. She threw in a little giggle for effect.

{…What do you want?} the man finally asked after dragging the silence on for several tense seconds.

{Unlock this comm, if you can, or tunnel me into an unrestricted hub with voice control.}

{Fuck it, fine,} the man spat out. {I'll patch you in if that gets you off my back.}

{Smart man,} Kasumi said cheerfully.

{Fuck you.}

The channel _did_ go silent for a moment, though, until a VI voice rang out, asking for user commands. Kasumi had already planned her messaging strategy in a little detail, and set out to achieve it in the few minutes she felt she could afford in the current situation.

{Thank you,} she said after she'd disconnected from the hub and dropped back to the merc channel. {Just one last thing.}

{What?} the earlier man asked warily after a tiny pause, perhaps surprised she had returned.

{Run,} Kasumi answered in her best maniacal voice—and grin—and afforded herself a moment's mirth when the channel went dead in an instant.

Quickly snagging the turian's rifle—for show at least even if it was user-locked—she shuffled quickly back to Jack to see if she could somehow get the woman moved somewhere at least _slightly_ less exposed. The Keeper, perhaps just a little closer again, did not seem able to help as much as she wished that it would somehow have understood their plight and helped protect Jack with whom it—obviously—would have formed some kind of a bond. She glanced up at the creature. It was probably not going to do any good to yell at it to help.

She sniffed the air. She did smell something blue.


	46. Chapter 45

_A/N: The third installment of Coherence is out, too. The fourth will be Saturday, I hope. _

_Love you all :)_

* * *

_A little earlier…_

"Report!" Hannah ordered from the doorway before she'd even spotted the delicate frame of her XO in the bustle of the room. The elevator ride had stretched to an eternity, and she felt better just being on the bridge—especially as the little niggling uncertainty about her command she'd felt in the downtime after the battle was gone again. She'd not analyzed herself deeply enough to figure out whether it was because the war had pushed such frivolous concerns out of her mind, or whether she just needed the external pressure to perform at her best. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. She hadn't felt it when she first became Captain and got her first ship, and it worried her a little.

She strode across the CIC as fast as she could, dodging people dashing between stations and with Eris somewhere in tow, trying to draw as much information from the brief glimpses at the various displays she saw as she went by. Her crew was back in gear as though the war had never ended, she thought approvingly as she passed, but she saw nothing obviously alarming in the flashing projections despite the flurry of hands across HIs.

{CO has the deck and tactical,} Amita spoke through her comm with a little tilt of her head as she stepped into view for long enough to beckon Hannah over to where she was huddled over the System Tactical projection with most of her other senior officers.

{Shepard. I've got deck and tactical,} Hannah responded over the intercom, forcing her breathing calm and voice even after her brisk walk. {Disengage alarms, readiness level two remains.} Halting at the assemblage around Amita as the warning signal died down—though the light strips still remained lit—she switched back into the battle group command channel she'd already reconnected to on the way, thankful to be rid of the irritating _pong_ of the alarm every few seconds. {This is Shepard. I need everyone here in sixty seconds, so report in or get your XO or CO online now. Readiness level is two.}

Toggling on a notification for the completeness of reporting statuses on the command channel to ensure her entire group was ready for action if needed, she leaned over the tactical view. Displayed was a rendering of Sol from the center all the way to Charon and past, the main sectors marked in faintly visible colors. Amita had it zoomed into their sector, with a secondary projection from Earth space detached. Hannah saw no hostile markers anywhere in the visible areas, nor anything in the data sheets surrounding the projection.

"We've got nothing nearby, ma'am," Amita confirmed from her side, twirling the zoomed region this way and that and showing only ships belonging to the allied fleets, some debris, and various asteroids and other miscellany. The data feeds indicated the projection was being assembled of every possible sensor and source they had, including a parallel feed from the asari relief fleet, making it all but certain that they weren't just missing something. "The relay is dead—"

"So?" Hannah prompted before Amita had finished drawing breath.

"—The alert came straight from Command. There's been some kind of an attack against the Citadel. All the fleets are mobilizing, but we don't really have much info beyond that. I ordered spreading the formation to 200 k gaps, and we're keeping an eye on the sector and combing through data from the past few watches but so far we've found nothing."

"Good work," Hannah said with a nod, and clapped Amita on the shoulder. "Keep it up, I'll see if I can get some more info," she continued as she turned and stepped over to the relative calm of the noise cancellation around her station, sparing a glance at the efficient bustle of the CIC around her as she went. Eris was easy to spot—she noted approvingly that the asari had evidently chosen to see if she could make herself useful at the long-range scan consoles rather than just stand around twiddling her thumbs.

Hannah quickly checked that all ships had reported in on the group command channel as she sat down, and issued the standard message macro to maintain readiness and await further orders. She reactivated her connections to fleet command and, on a hunch, to the coordination channel set up for handling operations between the assembled navies. The fleet channel was calm and quiet as she set it aside, and—

{Admiral Shepard, good,} Bajic called out presumably as soon as she saw Hannah's connection switch back to active on the coordination channel. {Sorry I haven't gotten to you yet. We're hoping this is a local problem and increasing readiness was sufficient over there. Report, now that you're here.}

{Everything quiet here, ma'am,} Hannah replied, slightly surprised that she'd still had access. {Relay is down, no movement whatsoever in the sector now or in the past few hours.}

{Good,} Bajic said curtly, the last syllable slightly clipped as the woman muted the channel or flicked over somewhere else for a moment before continuing. {Evidently the Keepers— Admiral Raan, welcome,} she interjected, {—as I was saying, the Keepers seem to have staged an attack on the Citadel, both inhabited Wards at least, some 10 minutes ago.}

{The Keepers? Those maintenance bugs?} someone else asked. It may have been the merc fleet commander, Hannah wasn't quite sure.

{The very same,} Bajic confirmed. {Estimates vary, but there may have been as many as twenty or thirty thousand of them all around the Wards, though their attacks were concentrated on high-value targets. Matriarch Lidanya and Primarch Victus both were and still are on Tayseri for the funeral, but are unhurt.}

_"tsoni there too,"_ Bajic wrote on a side channel as she spoke, _"but casrep 0, shes fine"_

_"thanks,"_ Hannah sent back, relieved. She'd suffered a flash of worry as she realized the funeral mentioned was in all likelihood that of the asari councilor and that Liara might've been invited.

{Casualties?} the quarian, Raan, asked in that smoky voice. {I have no reports from our people.}

{There are no confirmed casualties from the Keeper attacks,} Bajic replied, once again going silent for a moment. {According to all reports, their attack was easily thwarted even though it understandably caused some panic. There's no way to tell whether this is part of some larger campaign, however. No, goddamnit—} she huffed before cutting off for a moment. {Sorry. So we're on our toes. The Reapers have shown no signs of activating and there's nothing out of the ordinary happening elsewhere. It's my understanding that all the Reaper crafts have been disabled at this point, but we're reinstating guards anyway as a precaution.}

As Bajic stopped again, Hannah took the opportunity to beckon Amita over to give her the rundown. All too aware of the surreptitious glances in their direction, she made sure to act as calm and confident as she could—with surprising ease, she found. The situation didn't seem to be particularly dire, after all. Going to ready-two might have been a bit of an overreaction, but of course it was better this way.

* * *

_I guess_ that _secret's out…._

Miranda had known something was wrong immediately from the sudden change in Shepard's posture and eyes. Still, she'd barely even managed to turn around to where Shepard had leaped when moments after the readiness level announcement came on when the woman had already dodged Garrus' attempt to grab her before he'd even gotten out of his chair in what looked like a single continuous movement that took her over to Liara's desk. One of the front plates from the drawers had hit Miranda painfully square in the hip when Shepard had torn the entire front open letting out a low growl of frustration. Miranda had steadied herself on Garrus' shoulder trying to stay upright, telling the confused turian—uselessly, she already knew—to try catch Shepard from one side while she went for the other just as she'd felt the brush of the woman's hair against the underside of her forearm. She hadn't even noticed her moving from the desk when she was already at the bedside having slipped through between the two of them. Garrus had _almost_ gotten a hold of her then, but she'd spun around to tear her pillow apart and out of his grip, and then swept the jar that held the shard of glass they'd retrieved from her abdomen into the wall, shouting for Garrus to look for weapons or to keep Miranda safe—inexplicably, until she had stopped for the briefest moment to look over at them, hands quickly twirling the pillowcase around the base of what obviously was to be a makeshift knife. Miranda had taken a step back, and Garrus had pleaded for the woman to take a moment to sit and think. _"Stay here and away from the enemy, I'll be back for you,"_ Shepard had said, rivulets of blood winding down her hand, before sliding to the door and then in one movement opening it and swinging out just far enough to grab the asari guard.

"Can someone tell me what in the name of the Goddess just happened?" the asari guard asked as Garrus helped her up from the floor and propping her up against the bed to check that she was OK. Shepard had already disappeared into the hallway somewhere, the door closed behind her.

"I…uh, I don't know," Garrus said, clearly at loss for words, mandibles flicking erratically. He let go of the asari and leaned his arms on the bed, letting his head hang before glancing up at Miranda. "She was moving like she was in a fight, though far less controlled than I'd ever seen her."

"Yes," she said with a heavy sigh. _Goddamnit._ This might be very, very bad if they couldn't get through to her. At least she seemed to have recognized both her and Garrus, and treated the guard…more or less…as a friendly. Chances were that—

"Miranda?" Garrus prompted impatiently. "She just completely freaked out when—" he started, gesturing upward with an open palm.

"When the announcement came on," Miranda finished, squeezing her forehead with one hand, the other one supporting her against the bed frame. Her hip was throbbing a dull ache. Probably nothing but a contusion, but it'd hurt the next day. "She's having a flashback, a full-blown psychotic one by the look of it."

"That doesn't sound good," Garrus said, his voice dropping to what seemed nearly inaudible frequencies. "The damn alarm doesn't even seem to have been that serious according to my channels!"

"No, it's not good. God_damn_it," she swore, trying to think as she tried to avoid pacing around. They'd have to get her soon. "She's either reliving something or, more likely, imposing some previous experience to shape reality into something else. I don't know if she thinks we're being boarded by husks or what, but…"

"How long does it last?" Garrus asked, shifting in place seemingly unable to decide whether to go after Shepard or to hear Miranda out and perhaps formulate a better plan of some kind.

"Unassisted? An hour, a day, a year…there's no way to tell," Miranda admitted.

Garrus swore.

"What are we waiting for then?" the asari yelped, bringing her omni up. "We've got to go get her and get her to settle down!"

"How do you propose we _get her_?" Garrus asked pointedly, "She just disarmed you in less than two seconds, and I didn't fare much better," he continued, gesturing around the broken room. "She's a Spectre. And that was _before_ all the damn augmentations! _Ten_ of you is an inconvenience! And that's when she thinks you're _allies_," he continued, shutting the asari up. "Mother of trees, this is bad."

_Shit._ Another thing she hadn't considered. "We can sedate her for a time at least, but if she thinks we're trying to stop her from reacting against a clear threat…she might think we're indoctrinated, or otherwise working with the enemy. There's no guarantee she'll continue to see us as ourselves, even, if the psychosis is deep enough."

"We've got to do _something_! I'm not going to let her go out there by herself," Garrus said resolutely. "Not even if she just _thinks_ she's going into danger. I don't care if she—"

"Wait, Garrus," Miranda said with a shake of her head. She didn't want to see the turian risk himself coming to harm. "I think we need to play along until we can get through to her—" she stopped mid-sentence as her gaze fell on the guard. "We need to get Liara back up here."

Garrus nodded. His posture shifted slightly as he must have realized they weren't quite out of options. "You think she can…?"

"Yes." Liara would probably be able to calm Shepard down just by herself, or at the very least get close enough to get her sedated. Miranda tapped in a connection request even as she was still speaking, but the other end was reported unreachable. A feeling of dread crept upon her. "…What the hell is the alarm actually about? She's still not said," she continued, jerking her head upwards to indicate she meant the woman on the intercom. The XO, probably.

"Got something from the Primarch just a few moments ago. Give me a sec," Garrus said, but he'd clearly noticed her distress, cocking his head to glance at her as he continued browsing through his message backlog. "What is it?"

"Liara's comm is unreachable," Miranda said.

Garrus' jaw dropped ever so slightly, though whether because of what she'd said or the message he received she couldn't tell. She put in a new request and glanced up at the turian. "You got something?"

"What the…" Garrus started, mandibles flicking irritatedly. "The _Keepers_ made some huge attack on the Citadel. Sec, I'm going through to the Primarch," he added, turning slightly to the side to halt questions from both Miranda and the asari who was now getting back on her comms too.

The Keepers? The concept frightened Miranda more than she wanted to admit even to herself. It was unlikely that the Reapers were coming back to life, she supposed, but…

_"Primarch? It's Vak— …Yes— …Are you still at the— What's the situ— …Alright, good… When is it arriving? …OK. Yes, they are— …Good. I will. Primarch— …Yes. Primarch, there's a situation up here, too– …No, something else. I need Liara T'Soni, it's important. …Yes. I have Dr. Lawson here, can you speak with her br— …Yes. Can you speak with her? I need to move— Good, just a moment…_

Miranda cocked an apprehensive eyebrow at the turian as he stepped over to her proffering his omni even as he was still speaking. "I don't—"

"He's down at the Gardens, Liara was there too. They've got no reported casualties," he said sounding quite relieved as he brought his omni to hers to securely transfer a temporary channel access token, "and he should be able to spare a few troops to look for her if she's not immediately in sight. Just stay on there in case they need anything further…If Shepard's close by, I don't want to risk having to talk about anything that—" he continued, but Miranda just nodded, understanding, and flicked on the channel.

{Primarch Victus?} Miranda said carefully. {This is Miranda Lawson.}

{Nice to meet you, Dr. Lawson,} the turian replied evenly. There were a few scattered sounds of gunfire in the background. {Dr. T'Soni shouldn't be too far away, I should be able to get to her as soon as my guards give the all-clear to get out of here.}

{Thank you. I'll be on the line,} Miranda said curtly, and turned over to Garrus who was talking—no, giving orders—to the asari in a hushed tone. "Garrus?"

The turian jerked his chin and the poor guard took off at half-run. _"Aye aye!"_ She couldn't get the door open fast enough.

"They'll probably have a shuttle and can take Liara," he said as he turned back to Miranda, "but you might want to see if you can get a hold of Cortez just in case. Big guy, small beard, hangs out with Vega, flies shuttles," he added just in case clarification was needed.

"I know him," Miranda huffed. She may not have spent quite as much time on the _Normandy_ as he had, but there was no reason— _Hrm, that can wait, Lawson,_ she shrugged off her protestations. "I'll contact him—and get some sedatives and try to round up a couple of the psychs in case they have ideas for a plan B. What'd you tell th—"

"I sent her to her rally point, and told her to relay orders from me to the staff here to not interfere with a person matching Shepard's description in any way."

Miranda nodded approvingly. The turian was starting to think on his feet again. "Good. Now, it's important that you go along with anything Shepard does—to obvious limits. Just try not to contradict her—not," she added, knowing their squad dynamic very well, "even the banter you two usually share, no advice. Don't try to act normal, just go with anything she says. Got it?"

Garrus nodded, and set for the door. He was tugging his uniform tighter as he walked, obviously uncomfortable out of armor—even if it was just a make-believe fight he was going to.

"Any idea where she might've gone?" Miranda asked, causing the turian to look over his shoulder from the doorway as he went.

"She doesn't really need them, but I'm betting that she's gone looking for weapons. While trying to stay out of sight of any possible invaders," he said grimly.


	47. Chapter 46

_A/N: The new Coherence is out, too. Shepards, 2181. I also added a little bit about the SA command structure to the Codex._

* * *

Liara could not help but feel a bit of sorrow over the destruction that had rained upon the Gardens. The main buildings had been spared but for a few stray shots, but the dais and the steps leading down to the fields were thoroughly ruined—vindicating her father a little, she had to admit. The fields—where most of the fire had still concentrated—were all but a war zone, leaves and petals strewn on the upturned earth and around bleeding tree trunks. The carnage among the Keeper forces was terrible. There were more corpses than Liara could have counted even if she had tried…there had to be at least a few thousand of them, the closest ones almost to the small steps leading up to the courtyard they were on and the furthest ones almost a hundred meters further back. She was still astounded that the pacific creatures had decided to attack…but that may have been precisely what they were relying on. A successful attack against the funeral would have been a devastating blow with all three of the most influential military commanders on the ground—though Bajic had actually departed before the ritual part of the proceedings started, leaving only Lidanya and Victus—along with the variegated dignitaries. Still, by the look of it, the Keepers had never stood a chance…she was not even quite sure if they had had shield generators. At least they would be able to study them now—

She suddenly realized that the reason they could study now was that the bodies were still intact. She couldn't remember the specifics, but she knew that the Keepers had somehow self-destructed before, always. No-one really knew anything about them because of that. _Could they have become some kind of…bombs?_ With a flash of concern, she called out to 'their' pair of commandos now sauntering down toward the fields. "Be careful with the bodies, they may have some kind of a…delayed self-destructive mechanism!"

"Agreed, approach with caution," Lidanya said to one of her advisers as she and her retinue fanned out around Liara when they reached her, the order instantly relayed to all of the asari troops. "Good to see you're unharmed, Dr. T'Soni," the matriarch continued with a small smile.

"Likewise, Matriarch," Liara said, matching her formality. "It seems no-one was injured, thank the Goddess."

"Indeed."

All around them, others were emerging from wherever they had taken cover and slowly assembling around the circle forming around the matriarch. All were surprisingly quiet. There was no panicked clamoring, only hushed questions and discussions and frustrated attempts at getting comms out. Even the projection from Thessia was still online, though Liara was uncertain whether the general sense of…not panic, but distinct, serious fear and concern visible there was from the attack itself or if to compound the problem their outgoing connection had been severed leaving the other end in the dark about further events. But, no, now some of them pointed out to eachother—perhaps she had merely forgotten about the transmission delay and they had only now seen the attendees in the Gardens resurface. With some satisfaction, she noted the troops down in the fields advancing slowly and cautiously, poking around the dead Keepers with great care.

"What's going on, Li?" Aethyta asked, taking a step to the side and drawing Liara's attention back to this small…inner circle.

"I do not—" Liara started, unsure why her father thought _she_ would have any idea, but cut herself off abruptly as she noticed that Aethyta wasn't looking at her.

"We're not sure," Lidanya said as Liara followed her father's gaze toward the matriarch. Looks killing was an old refrain, but Lidanya appeared quite as though she had actually gained that power in her matriarch years and was fully intending on using it on Aethyta.

_"She's here!"_ she heard someone holler nearby, distracting her briefly from the curt summary Lidanya was giving. Turning her head around, she saw it must have been the turian soldier standing outside the circle and waving somewhere further off. Trying to guess the angle of view, Liara's eyes found Victus striding toward them with his own retinue bristling with heavy weaponry. The turian had just been looking for the Matriarch.

"…'ve attacked elsewhere too, according to C-Sec," Lidanya was saying, nodding her head to the side at the relatively young-looking turian in a C-Sec officer's uniform who Liara believed had been introduced as being the acting Executor, appointed by the turians and pending final approval from the…whatever the Council ended up being. "They were easily dispatched everywhere, but as a precaution everyone should evacuate the Citadel. C-Sec is in process of securing the…"

The Executor seemed to start protesting politely, but Liara's attention was stolen by the Primarch who had stopped just outside the densest concentration of people and was gesturing in her direction—she had to assume, at least, since Lidanya's back was turned his way, as were most of the other non-civilians. Victus jerked his head to the side somewhat impatiently in response to the questioning look Liara gave him. With a breath to steel herself for embarrassment if she found he had _not_ actually been beckoning her, she muttered an excuse and made her way through the small crowd, directly to the side first and then around the circumference to the Primarch.

His expression softened slightly when Liara came closer, his guards tactfully and discreetly widening the circle around them to afford some privacy. "Good to see you did not make a liar out of me. I told Dr. Lawson you were OK," he added as a clarification, with a little amused glimmer in his eyes before his expression became more serious again. "She wished to speak with you—or Vakarian did, actually, but he had to go…somewhere. I'll patch you in through my uplink so you can have the channel to yourselves."

Liara nodded, slightly confused. She did, however, unlock her proximity transfer to receive the channel data and, as the Primarch gave her a nod and headed for Lidanya, connected to it. {Miranda? We are all fine down here.}

{I know, the Primarch said nobody had gotten hurt,} Miranda said almost instantly in a very serious tone. {That's not what I'm calling abou—}

{What is it?} Liara asked, suddenly quite frightened. With a pit in her stomach, she walked a few steps further to the side to talk in peace. {Is something wrong with Shepard?}

{Not…not like that, no,} Miranda said soothingly, probably having noticed the fear in her voice and trying to calm her down.

Not like that? It relieved Liara to hear it, but only a little. She knew by the sound of the woman's voice that _something_ was wrong. {Miranda…}

Miranda said nothing for a moment, but Liara heard small changes in the quiet of the channel as though the woman started to say something several times before she finally did speak. {She needs your help. She's having a serious…damnit, a serious _flashback_,} she said, using an unfamiliar human word in her frustration. {A _flashback_, a mental thing, it's, uh…}

Liara had heard the word before but had chalked it up as meaning some kind of a dream from the context. {A what?} she asked even as she frantically tried to locate the definition in her dictionaries. The asari very rarely suffered from mental conditions and even then therapy was relatively easy with the ability for therapists to Meld with the patient to examine the root causes directly.

{She…she thinks she's in some past situation, at least to some degree,} Miranda said, sounding tongue-tied for failing to find the right terms. {It's a hallucinatory state, a _psychosis_.}

{What?} Liara yelped, loudly enough to draw attention to herself from those nearest to her. {How…how could this happen?}

{It's not terribly uncommon after traumatic events…It can be medicated even preventively,} she added, sounding almost angry now, {but I did not think it was going to be necessary, not with what she's gone through without distress before.}

_Without distress,_ Liara thought with a flash of her own to holding the woman in her arms. _If you only knew…_

{…It's my fault,} Miranda continued. {I just…I just didn't think it was a risk, certainly not at this level.}

{What do you mean _this level_?}

{Shepard's in full war mode, Liara—not against us,} Miranda hastened to add, possibly having heard her tiny gasp, {but I think in her mind the alarm from the Keeper attack was an invasion of the ship, so she's gone looking for the enemy. For right now we're all OK, but there's no telling what will happen, whether the psychosis deepens…} she trailed off for a moment. {And she might be a risk to herself even if not others.}

{I am on my way, Miranda,} Liara said, turning around to look for a conveyance. Not only was she frightened that something might happen to her, just the thought of Shepard thinking that she was going to battle, the weight of the responsibility, the fear… All alone. Imagining that feeling hurt Liara deep in her soul, her body echoing it by locking her chest and stealing her breath. {Put her on, or put me on a speaker, I can try to talk to her until I get there,} she croaked in a tight voice.

{She's not here, Liara—}

{_What?_} Liara almost shouted, _her_ distress clear enough that she saw Aethyta excuse herself and head in her direction. Shivers ran throughout her, and the pit in her stomach had become a hollow that crept out into her limbs.

{She got away already…it was so sudden,} Miranda explained calmly. {You _know_ how strong and fast she is, and it was just Garrus and I here. Garrus is tracking her down to see if he can at least stay with her wherever she's going. We can't send any of the ship's staff or MPs there…they'd just get hurt if something happened. I mean, she wouldn't harm them on purpose, but—}

{I know,} Liara said quietly, unaware of her father standing right in front of her trying awkwardly to offer some kind of support. _Very well, we must act…_ {I will get there as soon as I can. You probably should not stay on this line—}

{No.}

Liara nodded, uselessly, before remembering herself. {Okay…And Ka— Zoe is not there either. Alright, I will tell you how to activate the long-range comms in my system so that you should be able to talk to me at least,} she said, trying to think quickly, not bothering to specify that the VI would actually route the traffic through whatever long-range and broadcast equipment it found along the way to ensure she received it and at the same time make it less obvious that the messaging was directed at her. {I will have a handle that I can contact back if I am able to borrow someone's long-range here. All shuttles should at least have one,} she added more to herself than Miranda. {Can you get Garrus on the line, too?}

{OK, go ahead with instructions,} Miranda said quickly. {I don't want to add Garrus until you're here because there's a possibility that something one of us said might be heard by Shepard and upset her further. I have his sensory data feed, though.}

{I understand,} Liara said but not without some irritation despite the woman being right to be cautious. _Goddess, please let her mind soothe…_

Noticing her father there, Liara tried to muster a semblance of a smile and waved her further away. Still looking concerned but obliging her, Aethyta did take a few steps back while Liara gave instructions to Miranda—including for her to try to get a hold of Steve, and to keep trying to message Kasumi that Liara was safe and that she would likely not be at the Gardens. Miranda did not need to know that the message could be similarly piggybacked to quite possibly reach Kasumi even without a long-range receiver on her end.

"What's going on?" Aethyta hissed at her when she disconnected and looked around uncertainly.

A few cab shuttles had already arrived, but none seemed to have space flight capability to her untrained eye. She _could_ take one of them to the terminals and fly out from there, but if she could find one to get her up directly… Ignoring her father, she marched directly toward Lidanya and the Primarch. There seemed to be a break in the discussion, all parties conversing on the comms or among themselves—some, like a small gathering of C-Sec personnel, quite heatedly. Liara drew a breath. "I am afraid I must return to the _Tiber_ at once," she said just loudly enough for the closest assembled to hear. "If anyone is able to provide a craft capable of going directly there, I would be most grateful. And compensate appropriately, of course," she added, noting that a few of the diplomats and other civilians were there in addition to the military staff.

"Of course, we can try to arrange that," Lidanya said politely. "Is something wrong? Something wrong with the Commander?"

"No, no, her health is fine," Liara said quickly, scolding herself for not being a better liar and immediately admonishing herself for wishing she was.

Both Lidanya and her father gave her looks that clearly told her that they did not quite believe her implication of _everything_ being well, but did not press further. Even the Primarch's mandibles twitched just slightly.

"Admiral Bajic is on her way back," one of the humans interjected, saving her from a silence. "She didn't make it very far before the attack. We'll probably be able to at least get you somewhere that you can fly out from pretty quickly."

"Thank you—" Liara started before being interrupted by a short, sharp hiss.

"The vol-clan would be _–hiss–_ honored to lend our _-hiss-_ services, Liara T'Soni. Shuttle _-hiss-_ arriving shortly and can take you _-hiss-_ immediately to _Tiber_. It has an _-hiss-_ atmosphere, these suits are too hard to _-hiss-_ to get into to bother for short _-hiss-_ trips," he added, likely used to the question Liara, too, had wondered about.

"Thank you, Admiral…Bat, that is most kind of you," Liara said, craning to see the stout form amidst the turians, struggling for a moment to recall his name. The volus simply nodded.

"Good, it is settled," Victus spoke. "We will get going right away as soon as the sector is secured. It seems that the attack was indeed limited to the Keepers, and thus to the Citadel Wards. There are no reports of anything out of the ordinary from the rest of the fleet, nor from Earth."

Liara watched the first of the cab shuttles take off with some apprehension…she fervently hoped that the volus' ship would arrive soon. It would still likely be the fastest even if it took a little lo—

A massive explosion somewhere suddenly wrenched everyone's attention to the skies, nothing but a stream of black smoke visible over and between the buildings as she looked inward, the direction the Presidium had been. Then, as sudden as the previous, one of the cab shuttles a little more rotationwise from where the smoke was, was struck by a projectile from somewhere below it. Only a flash of a purple streak was visible, snapping the craft in two like a stick. This one did not explode, it merely crumbled into pieces that slowly fell toward the ground.

"I tried to warn you!" someone shouted behind Liara. As she turned—along with everyone else—she saw another turian in C-Sec uniform nearly screaming at the Executor-to-be. "They've got rockets, AA weaponry…tons of stuff went missing from the armories! We're going to lose control of the entire fucking _Ward_ if we don't get the situation back under control soon—the mobs and rioters are going to start clashing with the gangs, there's no telling what—"

"It can't be that serious, maybe it's just a few sporadic individuals or gangs," Lidanya said curtly.

"It could be, Matriarch," the officer said, visibly trying to calm herself down, "but even if it is, we haven't got the numbers to handle it! There's too much Ward and too few of us. We need forces down here."

"We can discuss it," the Executor said with an implication that the discussion would not be a long one. "You must remember, _Lieutenant_, that it will send an awful message if we must deploy military personnel on the Citadel."

The nods of approval at the counterargument were nearly unanimous among the assembled. "I will provide a strike team to that sector to assist with C-Sec operations," Victus added just as Liara's comm chimed an incoming call.

{Miranda?}

* * *

Garrus peeked out of the elevator, but did not see the telltale drips of blood he had been following right into the elevator itself. Shepard would never have been so careless about leaving a trail under normal circumstances; he was thankful there was at least _something_ good about her current state. With a frustrated huff he drew back in and selected the next deck. The _previous_ deck was where the armory actually was, but he'd not seen anything there, nor had the MP assigned to it. It was quite possible that Shepard was taking a circuitous route to throw off her assumed enemies, or perhaps the woman simply hadn't figured out the location yet. He wasn't sure if she'd ever been on a similar ship.

He wondered once again how the hell he was supposed to catch her if things went bad. She hadn't seemed _that_ out of it, relatively speaking—not seeing a turian and thinking he was a terrifying monster, for one—but if Lawson was right, she would be very unpredictable. As much as he hated to admit it, the woman was stronger than he was—by an order of magnitude. She had been strong all the way back in the early days, too, but he had actually come out on top a few times in the practice sessions they'd had. After her…_after_, though, with all the weaving and cybernetics… Hell, the woman would put up a good fight going hand to hand against a kro—

He almost slapped himself.

{Garrus?} Grunt answered nearly immediately when he sent the connection request.

{Grunt, I need your help,} Garrus said, trying to sound calm. He was pretty sure it wasn't a good idea to get Grunt concerned about Shepard until he got aboard at least. {Where are you? Can you get to the _Tiber_ quickly?}

{I'm on the _Ascension_,} the krogan replied sounding a little puzzled {I can leave right now, but it'll take a while to get there. Is it not something that Wrex can help you with?}

{I'm su— …Why?}

{Isn't he with you?} the youngling asked. {I told him about…_you know_, and that he could make a call but you know how he is. He left something like an hour ago from here.}

_Thank all the spirits,_ Garrus thought silently. {OK…we haven't seen him, but let me see if I can get a hold of him,} he said, disconnecting and sending a new request immediately.

_C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…_

{Garrus.}

{Wrex.}


	48. Chapter 47

_A/N: Happy Thanksgiving. There's not much to be thankful for in this chapter, unfortunately._

* * *

{No, Dr. T'Soni. Pardon me, I wasn't aware you were expecting someone else,} an unfamiliar, husky voice said into her ear. Slight Vahali accent—not uncommon for those from the region. Her mother had said many affected theirs, to show their roots. {This is Matriarch Onais. I command the security detail for Matriarch Lidanya. I was not sure this comm channel would turn out to be real, to be honest.}

Liara vaguely recalled a matriarch that might have been the speaker—someone she had seen a few times when Lidanya was around. Always in the background, always quiet. Liara looked around herself, half expecting to see her in the crowd somewhere nearby. She shook the foolishness out of her head—the matriarch must not have been present or she would not have bothered using the comm. _And why would it have been Miranda? What is wrong with me?_ she thought as she verified the matriarch's comm credentials in turn. {I am sorry. How can I help you, Matriarch?} Liara asked with a hint of uncertainty in her voice that she hated. She glanced up at Lidanya, standing just a few meters away still, but the elder showed no interest in Liara right then. Onais must have been speaking to Liara alone.

{I've received some strange and troubling info that I hope you can shed light on, Doctor,} Onais said quickly, making Liara's heart skip a beat. There was no shortage of trouble already. {Do you know someone named Ada Jean Xian? A human, by the sound of it.}

_Kasumi._ It was another one of her aliases…a new one, one that she had only mentioned to Liara once, in their cabin. {…I do, yes.} The matriarch's wording eased her nerves slightly, worried as she had been about Kasumi and Jack insisting on making their way to her. It seemed that Onais had spoken with the woman, or heard her at the very least. _Or perhaps someone else is relaying her information, and they were no longer able to identify Kasumi as a human,_ she thought with horror, cursing her mind for seeking meaning where there might not be any.

{Good,} the matriarch replied, a little more easily now. {We received a circuitous distress call from this person, directing us to contact this comm channel with a military authorization token,} she continued, allowing Liara to breathe out in relief. It could not be _too_ bad if Kasumi had been able to get out the message…though likely not too good, either. {She is…ah, requesting a two-person evac. She did not provide a location, only stated that you would be able to provide a transmission signature to search for, and the key to it. I'm relaying another authentication key to you. I assume it's for verification,} Onais added.

{I…yes,} Liara said, a moment's hesitation before surmising that Kasumi must have added the tracker data into her own file. {Just a moment,} she said as she called the data up in her offline copy even as she took a few steps away from the core of the crowd once again, oblivious to the number of eyes on her. {Transmitting,} she said curtly, forwarding the beacon data through the comm channel after decrypting it with the key Kasumi had sent along with her message. She silenced the foolish niggling doubt about the identity of the matriarch by telling herself that the data she was submitting would only be useful if Kasumi _had_ enabled the tracker. They would not be able to locate her without it, no matter if they had the parameters… Besides, they would have been hard-pressed to obtain this data if the woman had not provided it to them. _Still, we must devise a proper protocol for situations like these when everything calms down again…Goddess._ {…This must not be the _troubling information_ you spoke of, however?} she added, recalling the initial scare.

{Receiving, thank you,} Onais said. {I will send a shuttle to collect her. And no, you're correct. The evac was a sidenote in her message, actually. The main thing is the troubling part.}

{…And that is?} Liara asked, slightly irritated by the matriarch's own circuitousness. She did not need any superfluous distraction, not now, not when Shepard needed her, not when Kasumi needed her.

{The human asked to relay to all troops the information that the Keepers may not be hostile,} the matriarch replied with hesitancy in her voice…and a hint of hope, if Liara interpreted the tone correctly.

The briefest elation Liara felt at those words, a sorely missed lightness from the hope that this fight would not be a prolonged one, it was almost immediately devoured by a sinking feeling of dread as her gaze was slowly drawn back to the fields and the thousands of dead creatures haphazardly laid out upon them. As she looked on, a pair of soldiers fired single shots into one at their feet—a wounded one? "Stop! _Stop!_" she screamed out, to no effect. Only those around her turned to look, but the soldiers further away paid no mind, if they even heard her. "Order them to stop shooting!" she shouted again at whoever would listen as she twisted around toward the gathering she had walked away from, pointing in the direction of the fields. To her relief, she saw some of the ranking officers react to her words and reach for their omnis or comms, hopefully to relay the cease-fire.

{…Dr. T'Soni? Is this true?}

{I…} Liara started as Onais' voice drew her attention back momentarily, racking her brain, trying to avoid the urge to speak to everyone at once. She needed to concentrate on one thing, focus, one thing at a time, no mistakes, no misunderstandings. She still was not absolutely certain that it was not all just some insidious plot to give her false information…but at the same time, it was very unlikely that anyone could have found out all of the pieces needed to convince her even this well. _And the Keepers had been so easy to dispatch,_ she thought sadly. They could be dealt with even if they turned out to be hostile after all. {I do not know if it is _true_, Matriarch, but I trust the sender. If she believes it to be so, it warrants investigation,} she let out in a single breath.

{Very well,} Onais replied sounding relieved, almost as though she did not understand what it meant if it was true. {I will inform Matriarch Lidanya, and we will—}

{The Matriarch is right here,} Liara interrupted the security commander, frustrated and anxious. She did not feel she could trust the elder asari to explain the situation correctly, not if lives depended on it. {I will inform her myself.}

{…Very well,} Onais replied curtly. {Shuttle has been dispatched,} she added, and disconnected from the channel without so much as a farewell.

"Inform me of what, Dr. T'Soni?" Lidanya asked from just a handspan away, for once not startling Liara. "I assume you were referring to me."

"…Yes, Matriarch," Liara said, nodding. Once again, the circle had subtly shifted, Lidanya and the others moving toward Liara so that she was directly under their scrutiny. "I…"

"Care to explain your outburst?" one of the humans–a rear admiral—broke in, earning herself a glare from the turian general next to her.

Liara drew a breath, trying to think how to best convey her information without getting tangled up in it—if she saw correctly, the volus shuttle was making a low approach not too far away even as a few other shuttles flew in the direction of the ones downed earlier, one of them firing toward the ground somewhere in the distance. A few more had taken to patrol over the Gardens, flying a tight loop at a few different altitudes. "I have been informed by a reliable source that the Keepers may not be hostile. I am not…" she tried to say over the protestations, "…certain that this is the case, but I believe that this possibility must be investigated."

"What do you call this, then?" the Executor demanded, throwing a sweeping gesture encompassing the fields beyond.

"I admit that it does seem that they were…" Liara said uneasily. The sight had certainly thoroughly scared _her_ when she had turned around to see what the commotion was about, with the security forces storming the dais to fire on the Keepers when they first surged toward the courtyard.

"They didn't actually ever get to attacking range," Victus observed, head slightly tilted to the side as seemed his habit when he was thinking. "We held them at the fields until they retreated."

"Well, yes, but we did have several reports of attacks around the Ward immediately before," the Executor retorted. "That's why we were able to react quickly enough."

"I'm not certain we have any completely verified attacks," Victus continued, sweeping his commanding gaze over the assembled. "No casualties have been reported."

"Do you think we should treat them as non-hostile then, Dr. T'Soni?" one of the matriarchs at Lidanya's side asked. A commando or ground operations commander, it seemed from her garb.

_It is not your job to decide, Liara T'Soni,_ she thought, trying to convince herself that it was right to leave the choices for the military and the politicians while she went to her bondmate, no matter her deteriorating faith in those in charge. _She needs you. They do not. You have done your part. You have done enough._

Lidanya rescued her from having to answer by trying to assert her own authority. "If Dr. T'Soni has _information_ suggesting that we should re-evaluate our stance, we can take that into account," she said, meeting Victus' gaze before turning to the other matriarchs as if daring them to challenge her—somewhat unnecessarily in Liara's mind, she _was_ the commander, after all. Perhaps Lidanya's nerves were getting the best of her for once.

"It's not as if they're hard to kill if she's wrong, anyway," the earlier human repeated with exaggerated enunciation after being prompted to speak up rather than mutter whatever it was that she was saying.

Lidanya nodded again after exchanging looks with Victus and the humans and quarians whose names Liara had not bothered to remember, settling the matter. "Admiral Mbutu is correct. Should there be a need to re-engage, we should be able to do so with minimal difficulty."

Orders started flying around, asari, human, turian, C-Sec, and everyone else alike, but Liara did not hear them as she pushed her way through the crowds and toward the shuttle Admiral Bat hand indicated for her—with the assurance that it could simply fly directly up and off the Ward rather than risk whatever was going on closer to ground.

"You did really well, kiddo," Aethyta said with a smug grin as she clambered aboard after her daughter.

Liara cocked an eyebrow at that, quite unsure what about the entire day had gone well so far, but extended her arm to pull her father all the way in all the same, before slumping down on the G-chairs exhausted.

_Goddess, please let her be well,_ she prayed silently as she strapped herself in. {Could you please link me through the shuttle comms?} she asked of the pilot on the shuttle intercom.

* * *

{So glad I got a hold of you,} Garrus said, breathing just a little more easily for the knowledge that he had some backup now. {Where are you? Grunt said you were on your way to the _Tiber_.}

{I'm already here,} the krogan rumbled on the other end. {Good to see you around too, Garrus.}

Garrus took a look out of the elevator again as it stopped on the next level, just in case. No sign of blood, though the splatter on the inside floor did seem to indicate Shepard had both entered and exited. _Obviously she's exited, otherwise she'd be here, wouldn't she?_ {I need your help finding Shepard, Wrex.}

{Okay,} Wrex said simply, refreshingly enough not questioning Garrus, not ev— {Found her.}

{…What?}

{She's right here, Garrus,} Wrex said even as his location data arrived onto Garrus' omni. They were three floors up. {Actually a little ways up the hallway.}

A tingle of dread crept up, prickling the sides of Garrus' neck. {…What are you doing?}

{We're making sure there's nobody trying to board the ship.}

Garrus squeezed his eyes shut, jaw and mandibles grinding down. _…Only Wrex._ {You haven't been to the armory, have you?} he asked, fearing the answer.

{No…}

Garrus let out a breath of relief. Some good new—

{…I gave her one of my shotguns.}

{Goddamnit, Wrex,} Garrus blurted out, unable to contain himself. {Spirits…damn it. OK, alright…she's not right next to you, is she?}

{No, she's scouting up ahead,} Wrex replied, apparently completely unfazed by Garrus' anger.

{Listen,} Garrus said, trying to keep his voice even while he counted the seconds left between floors still as the elevator made its way back toward the top, {this is really important. Shepard's not herself right now. There are no invaders, she just _thinks_ there are. Didn't you notice anything strange about her behavior?}

He could practically hear the krogan shrug. {No.}

Garrus grit his teeth as he burst out of the elevator doors before they'd even fully opened, feverishly tapping a situation update message to Miranda on his omni.

{…Or, well, she's not wearing armor. She never does that,} Wrex continued, somewhat ponderingly now.

{Wrex…_Wrex_,} Garrus hissed into the channel as he ran toward the little dot on his map as fast as his legs carried him. {We have to play along with Shepard for now, do you understand? Just pretend we're actually looking for invaders, and pray like hell that she doesn't freak out before Liara gets here.}

* * *

_C'mon, Li…_

Kasumi peered out from behind the low wall of the fountain, still cloaked, flinching despite herself as another shot hit the Keeper in another one of its legs. The bastards were _toying_ with the silent, writhing creature, she thought with a streak of hot anger, struggling to hold herself back from helping. She had barely managed to get Jack dragged up and into the dried-up fountain basin when she'd heard the shots and shouts heralding the arrival of some dozen—eleven, she'd counted later—heavily armed ragtag people, mostly humans and asari, in pursuit of two others shooting wildly, desperately behind them as they tried to get away. They had not made it far across the small plaza Kasumi and Jack had gotten stuck on when one of the pair screamed out in pain as she was hit in the thigh, only to be cut off by another shot slashing straight through her neck as she spiraled around stumbling, balance lost to the force of the first bullet wrenching her leg from under her. The other woman hadn't even turned to look, she'd merely kept shooting and running, disappearing into the walkway where the mercs had been staked out earlier.

The first of the pursuers to get to the downed woman had leaped upon her, knife drawn as he'd pinned the inert shape underneath himself. "Fucking killed her, you fuckers," he'd growled at the others gathering around him as he slowly got back up, clearly disappointed.

"Hah, even Jer won't fuck dead meat," one of the asari had spat out with a grin in response, to raucous laughter. "He likes a bit of a fight!"

That's when they'd noticed the Keeper, still where it had remained when Jack had collapsed. Whooping and jeering, the dead and fleeing women all but forgotten, they'd stormed right over to the creature, surrounding it as it silently looked around itself, still unmoving. One of the asari had been the first one to attack, slashing at one of the Keeper's arms with a short blade. The others had been quick to follow, quickly bringing the Keeper down, but not killing it outright.

Shaking with rage—and not a little fear—Kasumi flopped back down behind the cover, pressing her back tightly against the low wall of the basin. She glanced down at Jack again, lightly touched the woman's forehead. She definitely felt colder, now, shivering slightly despite the enviro-barrier Kasumi had been running as much as she dared. Growling silently, she peeked out again, trying to find _some_ way they could get out…she'd been hoping that the gang would get tired of the area and move on, but it looked quite the contrary. They seemed to be prepping some kind of an ambush or firebase into the walkway where it opened up to the plaza at the lower level a little ways up. Good spot, undoubtedly, if they were expecting an attack from that direction…anyone coming through would have to get across that plaza and then up the staircase, both completely exposed to the walkway. Alone, she could have gotten away without a problem, but she couldn't leave Jack here, not even temporarily. Her heavy sigh was interrupted by a squeal of engines somewhere behind her even as her omni flashed a tracking lock. _Thank fuck, as you'd say,_ she thought as she squeezed Jack's shoulder, twisting around to try to locate the vessel in the sky.

The problem was, so were the vile bastards on the other side. As the shuttle flew into view, they finished off the Keeper and drew into the cover of the walkway entrance. "It's fucking seen us!" one of the asari yelled.

"He says he wants distraction? Let's fucking give him _distraction_," one of the others called out in return, dashing Kasumi's hope that they'd flee rather than face down the unknown craft. "Jer, get the launcher ready, I want that fucking thing _down_, I don't see any heavy weapons on it!"

Kasumi swore quietly. The weaponry she'd seen might actually be sufficient to bring down the shuttle if they got even a bit lucky. If the shuttle crew had seen their adversaries, she didn't know…maybe they just didn't consider them a big threat, if they did. She _could_ broadcast a warning from this close, but she'd probably be giving herself away…but she'd probably be given away when the rescuers headed in her direction, anyway. If the gang leader behind her was right, the shuttle didn't have the capability to take the threat out from the air…leaving them either running away, or risking getting downed while it tried to get whatever forces it might have out. For all Kasumi knew, it might not have any, although it did clearly look like a military vessel. And even if the shuttle fled, the bastards might figure out to make a sweep of the area—

"Ready to rock!" the man called Jer screamed out, interrupting Kasumi's frantic situational assessment. The shuttle was hovering about thirty meters in the air right about the center of the square some hundred meters away, descending almost vertically. She saw its engines flare up and the hull starting to tilt crazily as the pilot got the warning about the weapons lock and tried desperately to get away before the unknown enemy fired.

"Fire!" the leading asari yelled, accompanied by what must have been her own rifle firing.

Kasumi made her decision in a split-second, pulling up her pistol as she was standing up–initially facing the wrong way and firing without aim behind her in the direction she hoped the heavy weaponry was located while she was still turning. Her first shots went completely off-target but as she kept twisting the right way around, she saw the man right at the pillar where the human merc had been. Desperately adjusting her aim in her swinging trajectory, she kept firing, shots making a descending pattern into the pillar, one of them hitting the man in the cheek just as he pulled the trigger in his own weapon. For the briefest moment she saw the crimson and gray splash into the pillar behind the man before the flaming roar of the launcher burned it black. As the man was thrown back by the hit, the missile took off, streaking above Kasumi in a flash she was barely able to see. Behind her, she heard a screaming crash of metal scraping over metal beyond the roar of the rocket, followed almost immediately by an explosion that threw her down into the basin wall.

Shaking off the shock and trying to shield Jack, she saw the shuttle pilot struggle to maintain the craft level even as its side door opened to reveal a heavy mounted cannon, its muzzle spitting fire into the walkway entrance before it was fully revealed. A cloud of black smoke spread slowly behind it, almost engulfing the craft. The missile must have exploded just _after_ impacting the hull, though whether it was because of her shot, Jer's ineptitude, or pure luck, Kasumi didn't know. She saw shapes moving inside the vessel, four of them, all running straight out of the ship and into the air, as she watched, each freefalling over halfway down before flares of biotics slowed their descent and brought them down gracefully somewhere below Kasumi's field of vision. _Asari commandos._

{We see you, Ada Jean,} a voice huffed in Kasumi's ear as her tracker channel was patched into the rescue team's, breathing heavily as its owner ran closer. {Sit tight, we'll get you.}

{One unconscious but you can move her, I can't move very fast myself,} Kasumi called back, hunkering down as the cannon rained fire streaking down just meters above her head.

{Got it, the ship'll get closer,} the asari acknowledged curtly, punctuated by the echoed blaze of the cannon above and her own assault rifle. {Iri, left, keep them down. Mii, Rinn, with me. Lyssa, get a little higher, Tai's shooting too low, can't stand up at the fountain!}

A few long seconds passed, Kasumi hiding not only from the friendly fire, but also shots from the enemy impacting the lip of the fountain above her, and the centerpiece just a few meters further away.

{Fuck, there's more of them coming on the left flank! Lyss, Tai, suppress them and get your ass down on the ground, we need to move! Iri, keep fire on the gateway! Call backup— _Uff!_} Kasumi's aural barked as the asari leaped over the opposite wall of the fountain, gracefully transitioning into a roll that left her on one knee right next to Kasumi and Jack, grinning with teeth wreathed in the purple of her barrier as she fired above the lip into the walkway entrance. "Don't worry, we'll get'cha out," she said, ducking down as two others followed her over the side, not even stopping as they grabbed Jack and started pulling her back. {Mii and Rinn are moving back, keep the fuckers down, Iri!}

The asari popped up again, now firing toward the left while the two others–Mii and Rinn, presumably—hauled the unconscious Jack over the other side and disappeared from Kasumi's view again. {Lyss, you down?} the asari asked without taking her eyes off the front. {Good, keep the left covered, we're coming back now. Iri! I'm moving back, it's just you!} the asari barked into the comms, turning over to Kasumi, her barrier creeping up on the woman, too. "Let's go, just keep moving, I got you!"

Kasumi nodded, the world around disappearing into a tunnel roaring with gunfire, nothing seen but flashes of the way toward the shuttle as the two made their way back, unseen bullets chipping the stonework around them, one shot even striking the asari somewhere in the shoulder. They were almost at the shuttle when the gunner inside screamed a warning about a missile, Kasumi having just enough time to register the words before her escort slammed them both down and a searing pressure pushed down on her as another missile exploded somewhere nearby. Two pairs of hands grabbed her almost before the pressure wave had cleared—probably Iri coming from behind, too—and roughly dragged her to the shuttle and tossed her in between the other pair of asari now firing out of the doorway along with the cannon, the craft already hovering a meter off the ground as the last two jumped aboard. The shuttle lurched violently upwards as the pilot gunned it.

Iri and either Mii or Rinn knelt over their injured leader as the shuttle accelerated, but she waved them away roughly, pointing toward Kasumi. "I'll be fine," she grunted through gritted teeth. "Help the human, she's hurt worse."

Kasumi started to protest, feeling more or less okay, until she realized that the two went straight past her. She couldn't breathe as she turned around to see Jack lying in a slowly expanding pool of blood, a huge, gaping bullet wound in her side just above her hip.


	49. Chapter 48

{Liara?} Dr. Lawson asked as the channel chimed to signal a new connection in Steve's ear, her breathing heavy from the running she'd been doing almost since she'd first contacted James. She hadn't explained the situation in great detail, hurried as she was, but it was evidently of utmost importance to get Dr. T'Soni up to the _Tiber_ even beyond the simple necessity of evacuating her from the Keeper threat. Something had to be wrong with the Commander, didn't take a genius to figure that part out. Steve only hoped it wasn't anything too serious. {I've got Cortez and Vega on here, too, they're on their way to you,} she continued.

{I am here, Miranda,} the asari replied, her voice slightly modulated by gaps in the signal. {I no longer need to be picked up. The volus have kindly provided transportation for myself and my father,} she continued, sounding very, very tired and weary.

{What? Oh, good,} Dr. Lawson replied distractedly, raised voices audible in the background. {Are you flying straight up here? Give me a moment, I've got to speak to somebody…I'll be on the line.}

{You alright, Dr. T'Soni?} James asked, stopping his infernal pacing for a blessed moment as he leaned heavily against the headrests of the two pilot's seats in the small cabin of their shuttle. The marine had decreed that they'd need to divert from their original plan of trying to find Kasumi and Jack—which is why they had already been a few minutes out from the _Ob_ when Dr. Lawson got a hold of them—in favor of extracting the asari, but Steve could see the decision was tearing the man up inside despite his insistence that the women would hold their own until Dr. T'Soni was taken care of. The still-ongoing broadcasts and the little other info they had been able to receive had done nothing to ease the man's nerves, signs of fighting and other trouble brewing everywhere on the Wards. The Keepers themselves hadn't ultimately posed much of a danger—it appeared, anyway—but it seemed that quite a few people had panicked—and that was putting it mildly—at the prospect of the war not being over, and he had no doubt that there'd be others just trying to take advantage of the confusion. There always were. All he could do was hope the situation didn't get completely out of hand.

{Yes, James, everyone was fine down at the Gardens,} the doctor replied with that patient kindness that Steve couldn't help but admire. {It is possible that the Keepers were not in actuality even attacking us.}

{_What?_} Steve and James blurted out simultaneously. Bad intel wasn't exactly a new thing, but if… {How—}

{Kasumi and Jack,} the asari replied curtly to the cut-off question. {And I want you to try to go locate them immediately,} she continued even as she sent a tracker signature for Steve to input into the nav system. {They are in some kind of— They requested an evacuation. I have arranged for an asari military pick-up, but I am not certain how fast they will be able to get there, and furthermore I would be comforted by the knowledge that you, also, are going to their aid regardless.}

{We'll do that, Dr. T'Soni,} James replied, admirably calmly in contrast to the wild gesticulating to floor it and go look for the pair that he was doing in person, stopping just short of trying to get into Steve's seat himself. He bounced somewhere into the back for a moment, only to return with all his gear, madly stowing weapons and accessories into his armor.

{Yes, ma'am,} Steve acknowledged explicitly. He did not particularly like the worry in the asari's tone, clearly there as much as she'd tried to hide it. {Beacon data received…locating now,} he added, hoping that the tracker was powerful enough to be detectable from this far despite the women obviously not carrying other long-range comms equipment. The personal ones were usually reasonably useful if not quite enough so to be detectable in a plain planetary scan, but the range was much smaller than _that_, here.

{I feel better already,} Dr. T'Soni said, sounding like she truly meant it. {How far away are you, Steve?}

{We are about six minutes from the Gardens, lemme see where this…} he replied, trailing off distracted by James' agitation almost as much as the actual effort of resolving the coordinates from the tracker, quickly trying to position an overlay model of the Ward onto the real thing displayed through his HUD. {…Got it. Rabal sector. They're about two and a half klicks from the Gardens. Looks like a good pick-up spot. We're roughly five minutes away now.}

{Wonderf—} Dr. T'Soni started, only to be interrupted by Steve's double-take.

{…Wait, hmm,} he cautioned, holding up a hand to keep James quiet, too. He knew the same thing the marine did; the sector had been the source of several reports of surface-to-air strikes against civilian shuttles, and all other data from there was very sketchy. {The signal is not stationary. It's moving.}

{They are moving toward the Gardens still?} the asari asked, perplexed. {I was under the impression that—}

{No,} Steve cut in, fingers flying over his targeting array. {It's way too fast. Almost faster than us, faster than a surface shuttle certainly. Seems like your friends have picked them up,} he continued, trying to locate the actual craft to be able to track and contact it.

{Thank the Goddess,} Dr. T'Soni breathed out, relief dripping from her voice.

* * *

"Go, leave me behind!" Kolyat shouted as he once again stumbled onto one knee, pulling Bailey slightly off-balance but not enough for both of them to go down.

"Use your energy for moving, you over-dramatic bastard," Bailey grumbled, dragging the drell forward and up none too gently, high enough for the youngin to get back on his legs—or leg, really. The other one didn't look so good. Didn't _sound_ so good, truthfully. The occasional faintly audible grinding crunch made Bailey cringe every time, sent a cold shiver up his spine as he tried to ignore the pain the drell must have been experiencing.

"Quick! I hear them," the asari pleaded from the doorway.

He could see the barrier she'd put up at the door on the level below was wavering. She was trembling herself, clearly not used to exerting her biotics to this degree. He had to give her credit, she'd managed pretty well so far—she wasn't much use helping with Kolyat as the three of them trying to synchronize their movement just made it more awkward, and she knew the area somewhat so she had been running to doors and intersections ahead of Bailey and Kolyat, to cover their advance. Fortunately the few shots he'd gotten through at the lower level of the plaza had managed to hit a couple of the gangbangers and given the trio a little head start while the pursuers tried to dare themselves to descend into the semi-lit hallway after them. With frustrated grunts, he managed it up the last few stairs and into the doorway.

"This ain't working, son… Hop on, I'll piggyback you," Bailey huffed at Kolyat as the door slid shut behind them, finally realizing it'd probably be much faster to carry the kid instead. "How long we got to go?" he asked the asari even as he more or less just backed into the reluctant drell and started pulling him up himself until Kolyat finally relented and wrapped his legs around Bailey's waist and his arms across his shoulders.

"I am not sure," she replied sounding like she was about five seconds from tears. "It cannot be very far, they _must_ be nearing us. This is the right building—" she continued, cutting off with a little gasp as the door downstairs crashed open, pointing the gun—borrowed from Kolyat, who had no use for it currently—at the door they'd just come through.

"Go!" Bailey yelled, pointing somewhere in the direction he assumed they were supposed to be going.

The asari took off like a rabbit again, dashing toward a hallway on the left. Suddenly, just as Bailey had managed to get himself into motion, she halted mid-run, turning around with a desperate grin. "They're right there! I am picking them up now!"

_Thank the lord,_ Bailey thought as he trudged on with the drell on his back. "Keep going until you see them!" he yelled in response, allowing a small grimace of a smile as Kolyat enthusiastically clapped him on the chest. "We're not out of it yet…"

His relief was all the greater when she heard voices up ahead, and moments later felt the tingle of a biotic barrier around himself even before he saw their rescuers. Two asari in full kit dashed toward him, another one in more modest equipment standing guard at the doorway ahead, weaving a simple pattern with her hands. Just as the commandos got to Bailey, transitioning seamlessly from running forward into moving backwards in step with him and guns trained for potential pursuers, the third one struck forward with her hands, immediately causing an intense vertigo as he felt his feet lift off the ground. "Fuuuhh—"

"You're lighter than you look, Commander! Sorry!" the asari shouted back with a grin, reducing the energy she was channeling just enough for Bailey to be able to run comfortably while still significantly reducing the weight he had to move.

* * *

For all the heart-pounding, pants-wetting terror their escape had been that far, the last few minutes seemed almost a stroll in the park. The pair of asari at his side had fired a couple bursts somewhere behind—he sure as hell wasn't turning around to look—and he was almost certain one of them had stopped to leave a proximity mine at one doorway, but as far as he could tell, the Warders never got close enough to fire on them. The group made it easily up the two floors and onto the small balcony acting as a shuttle bay on the top floor of the building, and clambered aboard without a hitch.

"What's your name?" one of the asari was asking the wincing Kolyat as she examined his leg in one corner of the shuttle's passenger compartment. The asari they'd brought along was being tended to by another, and Bailey merely lay on his back gasping for air as the shuttle took off.

"Are you alright, Commander?" the third rescuer—the biotic—asked him, a blur of lavender hovering above him.

"Y— _cough_ —es, I…_uhh_…I'm fine," Bailey wheezed out. "Just too old for this shit. Thanks," he finished, trying to actually convey his gratitude the best he could.

"You're most welcome, Commander," the face said, smiling, slowly coming into an angelic focus as Bailey's body started feeling it could afford to return some blood into his eyes, too. If angels were kind of a purplish light blue, anyway. "We're headed for the Gardens. I hope that's fine with you…the whole Ward is a bit of a mess right now."

"You don't say," Bailey grumbled.

The asari just grinned back, and stood up. "I'll be back shortly," she said as she disappeared somewhere toward what Bailey felt must have been the front of the craft.

He gave himself permission for a few more breaths before trying to push himself off the floor, knowing it'd be a couple minutes to the Gardens—more, if they had to try to evade detection. Poking at his omni, he rolled over to his side and labored into a comfortable crouch. "You OK, kid?"

Kolyat simply nodded, clearly feeling better for the medic's ministrations. She'd gotten his leg armoring removed, and was fitting a brace around the limb.

"I am fine too, thank you," the asari replied with a shy smile when Bailey turned over to take a look at their short-term companion, now peaceably resting on one of the far side seats with a blanket draped over her shoulders. Blankets always seemed to make things better, he reflected.

{This is Bailey,} he announced himself unto the C-Sec command channel, tuning back in now that he felt it would no longer be a distraction from not getting killed. {Yes, yes, you're not rid of me yet,} he barked in response to cheers from his people. {What's going on?}

Lieutenant Zaranesc—solid woman, one of Keethem's people—had apparently stepped up to the responsibility while he was gone. The turian was giving him a run-down of the situation, including a hushed grumble about the complete uselessness or worse of the Executor appointee, when his comms panel chimed to draw his attention to a connection request. {Sorry, damn it, Zar…give me a minute, I need to take this,} he said, cutting the woman off as he quickly switched channels.

{Aria?}

{About time you answered,} the asari replied icily. {I don't make a habit of trying to get a hold of people who _need_ me more than once. Any people, in fact.}

{Well pardon me, I was busy getting shot,} Bailey spat out, noticing that he'd missed another comm request about ten minutes earlier. {The whole Ward is going to shit, Aria,} he continued a moment later, the asari not showing any indication of talking about either his well-being or the reason for the contact.

{Yeah.}

{What do you mean, _yeah_?} Bailey asked through grit teeth, already knowing this would not be a pleasant conversation.

{It is.}

{You knew?}

{Of course,} Aria replied, sounding more bemused than insulted. {This Keeper thing was a bit of a surprise even to me, I admit, but it was just a matter of time. _You_ knew it, because you're not a complete idiot.}

Bailey wasn't sure about the idiot part, but he _had_ known. The writing had been on the wall, literally in many cases. {Then— What— …Where are you?} he asked weakly.

{None of your business.}

He sighed, careful to mute the channel first. {You're not on Tayseri, are you? Didn't want to deal with the problems here?} he asked, trying to provoke some kind of a reaction to at least confirm his guess.

{Because I would've gotten pats on the head for taking out a couple thousand of my rivals?} the asari asked in turn, all venom. {Get your head out of your ass, Bailey. Everyone's not like you, they don't get it. And Tevos is gone.}

{So you let them get you on the run instead?} Bailey shot back, unable to stop himself before he thought better of it. He winced as soon as he'd said it.

{On the run? Hardly,} Aria replied calmly. {Business is going well here. Far fewer problems. Your misfortune that they decided to fill the power vacuum I left.}

{You know—} Bailey started before catching his tongue. It was pointless to argue, he knew…Aria had known she'd have a big fight in her hands—even if she'd probably have won out—and had made the smart move and moved on. Without losing face, to boot. _God_damn_it._

{You should come see me sometime,} the asari said as she disconnected, not bothering to ask what Bailey wanted. She knew that he knew she wouldn't be offering any help, and didn't prolong the discussion unnecessarily by pretending otherwise.

* * *

"Help the human, she's hurt worse," Hilla ordered, pointing at the unnamed woman and wincing as she hit her shoulder painfully on the door frame when Rinn let go of her and dashed off to help the human. Hilla shifted to a more comfortable position and rummaged around her compartments for some medi-gel to staunch her bleeding. She couldn't see it very well, but the pain was intense enough that her shoulder piece must have gotten damaged too badly to be able to automatically administer to the wounded area. She wasn't too concerned about it with the arm retaining some agonizing movement and the relatively modest amount of blood spilling over her arm plating and vambrace, but she triggered a couple ampoules of a painkiller to be able to function better.

"No no no no no no…" the dark-haired human—Ada Jean—squeaked as she realized there'd been an injury and turned around to find her companion—girlfriend?—sprawled out in the center of the shuttle floor, and moved as if to try to crawl up to her. She didn't seem too badly hurt herself, though Hilla was a bit concerned about the state of her leg and arm cybernetics, small trickles of the still-strange red blood visible around their connecting points.

Hilla reached forward and grabbed the woman by the waist to stop her, grimacing at the effort of having to move her upper torso at all. "Hey, easy now," she said, trying to sound calm and soothing despite the lightness in her head as she attempted to catch the human's eye. "We're safe, and Rilann's going to take care of her. She's the best medic in the entire Fleet," she continued, only exaggerating a little as she jerked her chin toward Rinn who had pulled up a projection of human anatomy to overlay on the inert body.

Ada Jean still seemed altogether disconsolate, eyes flicking wildly and her breathing rapid and shallow—which, unlike in asari, was not a good thing in humans if Hilla remembered correctly. "Ada Jean?" she tried again, trying to think of something to snap the woman out of her budding panic. "Can you help me with my shoulder? I need to get this bleeding stopped," she bluffed slightly, quickly gesturing that she was okay and didn't _actually_ need help to Rinn, who had turned from her patient to glance at her commander.

"Yes, hold on," the woman replied, eyes refocusing and her manner calming a little as she shuffled forward over to Hilla after the briefest hesitation. "Does this thing come off?" she asked, crouched over Hilla's shoulder. She swept her hair from her eyes, the ink-black, silky strands brushing across the asari's face before the woman managed to stow them behind her strange, intricately shaped auricle.

Hilla ignored the little tug she felt deep in her abdomen and just nodded, quickly disengaging the armor's locks and seals from her omni before showing where the attachment points were. "You have to take off the brace first, then the upper arm, and only then the shoulder piece," she instructed, glad to find that the woman's deft fingers had almost gotten to the shoulder by the time she was finished saying the word. "Can you see it? You can remove the chest piece, too, if you need to."

"No, this is fine," Ada Jean said more confidently now, gingerly mopping blood away from the wound with a cloth or a bandage she'd ferreted out of one of Hilla's pockets. "I don't want to make you move until this is bandaged. Sorry," she added when Hilla winced as the pain shot through her clouded senses.

Slowly, blessed succor came as Hilla felt the ice-cold sensation of the gel seep into the tunnel the shot had burrowed into her shoulder, and flare through her arm and into her chest, numbing the burning throb until she barely felt the human start applying a pressure mixture around the wound.

"Ada Jean, what was wrong with your friend before?" Iri asked from where she was kneeling down to help Rinn.

"She—" the woman started, turning as she replied but whipped back toward Hilla after a feigned gasp of pain. "She just fainted, I think. Wiped herself out. We'd been fighting for a while, and she'd been using a huge amount of power—"

"She's a biotic and _just_ fainted? Biotic shock is no trivial matter!" Rinn said sharply. "…But it doesn't seem she's too badly off in that respect," she amended a little more softly after a furious glance from Iri.

"Is she not accustomed to using her biotics?" Iri asked, trying to get the woman back on track.

To their surprise, Ada Jean nearly burst out laughing at that. "Without underestimating your powers, she's probably stronger than all of you combined—and then some," she said with a faint smile at Hilla, causing the asari to raise a curious brow and ignore another warm tug. "She…she's just not been taking care of herself," the woman added, quietly now. "I don't think she's slept for several days. Probably not eaten anything, either, and I think she's been using drugs pretty heavily."

"Which drugs?" Rinn asked without looking up, but Hilla saw her pull up a second panel for reference.

"I'm not sure…I just got to her a little while earlier. MDMA, definitely, and some amount of alcohol," the woman replied plainly. "Something else too, but I'm not sure what. Creeper, maybe? Probably parax or hallix. I'm sorry, I don't know…" she continued, sounding like she was on the verge of tears again.

Hilla hushed her, laid a comforting hand on the side of the woman's neck in what she hoped wasn't an inappropriate spot to touch. "That's very helpful, thank you. What's your friend's name?"

"Jack. Her name's Jack."

"Jack will be just fine, you'll see," Hilla added, trying to sound confident about it.

{We need to get this one to a hospital, Lyssa,} Rinn muttered to the pilot on the crew channel as quietly as she could. {Find the nearest human hospital ship, or one of ours—hell, anything with a _good_ medical facility that's close. And make it quick,} she hissed, {she's lost a lot of blood if it's at all comparable to the amount we have, and I can't really see what all has been damaged inside.}

"We've got the bleeding stopped, Ada Jean," the medic said out loud. "We'll put her on a stretcher to make sure she doesn't move, and we'll get her up to a ship so that doctors can check her out, okay?"


	50. Chapter 49

The last hour had been another one Feron wished he could not remember and relive with perfect clarity. What had seemed a relatively peaceful shift monitoring the network because he and Zoe had agreed upon giving their research a rest for a few hours had turned into abject terror as he witnessed the Keeper attack nearly in real time, along with at least millions of people around the galaxy. The minutes before Liara and the others re-emerged in the wide-angle shots the networks still streamed had seemed endless, and he _still_ wasn't quite comfortable with the situation—the reports of disturbance on the Citadel and on Earth had soured his initial relief, although he had enough faith in Liara to know she should be fine in these more mundane turmoils. It had left _him_ quite shaken up, as well. He felt silly about the monitoring program he had immediately directed to keep an eye on the dead Reapers in the system, but he hadn't even seriously considered turning it off, either.

He didn't have to guess how the sudden resurfacing of the war had affected the galaxy at large…he could already plainly see it in the data streams. If the attack had lasted even an hour or so, there was no telling how much damage people would have caused in their panic. The cost was high as it was, even in lives, and Sol certainly didn't seem to be the only place with more than sporadic unrest. He wished he had the time to devote to setting up proper filtering vectors to analyze the longer-term effects over the next days and weeks, but it would have to wait along with getting a hold of Liara and Zoe in person. The delay had already jeopardized the timing of his final jump.

Having learned from the last time, he hoped anyway, he had made sure to build a cache of VI relays in various parts of the galaxy, all designed to pass through predefined and generated orders during times when he or the other two couldn't do it themselves, and thus hopefully obscuring his true location and schedule better. Designing the strategy hadn't been quite simple since it couldn't just consist of trivial or repetitive instructions, and he still wasn't certain that it would actually be effective…but he didn't think it'd make things _worse_, at least. If a rival succeeded in getting into the network's communication lines, the possibility of being able to deduce significant details from the messaging pattern would be lowered to a manageable risk. His escape from the Cradle had been a little too close and even if the pressure that had crept around his consciousness for the few days he had stayed at his temporary outpost of Niacal was just his paranoia, he felt better about at least having a chance of throwing off any seekers. With Zoe's help he had also devised a pattern of moving both with and without company, in convoys or just by himself, all to reduce the possibility of tracking either single ships _or_ ones who always tagged along others, and on top of that moving conservatively enough that the sheer number of jumps didn't set off alarms. Coming up with cover stories for visiting various places wasn't terribly difficult, especially if you pretended to be a bastard of a businessman trying to benefit from the plight of the war-torn galaxy, but it was still one more thing that could go wrong. The human was, fortunately, quite adept at moving around the galaxy completely undetected.

He hadn't quite been able to explain to himself why he had decided to go to the Shrike in person, either. He needed to move _somewhere_, that was true enough, but going around looking for this Linesse himself didn't seem the best use of his time—and, in fact, several mercs had already been hired to do exactly that after he had figured out that it was all but impossible to get much reasonable data about the asari through the network with so little to go on—although he still had VI-driven text and video searches running too, of course. He didn't know why he felt obligated to look for Liara's half-sisters to begin with, but obligated he felt…and he knew it'd just nag at him if he didn't go, distracting him from more important things. The Shrike, his first destination, was one of the regions worst affected by the war based on his analysis—although at least the Xe Cha system was still supposedly inhabited—and it was one of the likeliest ones to start getting hit by marauders and pirates if it already wasn't, something that he decidedly did not need despite the very good weapons systems and engines his little ship was equipped with. On the other hand, the restlessness was exactly the reason he had opted to go after Linesse rather than Lilani, who was either on Thessia or at least somewhere in asari space and thus a lower priority for a rescue.

He punched in the navigation plan for Zada Ban with a disbelieving shake of his head.

* * *

Uska gingerly placed the tips of her toes just on this side of the seam of the floor tiles, careful to make sure her footing was secure before shifting her weight onto the leg. Then the other foot just a little further up, cautious to keep as close to the seams as possible so that the uneven slabs wouldn't creak under her as she made her way to the door on the other side. There was a support thing under the seams—she'd watched her father building the floor for hours—so it would have been safest to step right on them but stepping on seams was bad luck. Erda had said so. It was probably not true, but she didn't want any more bad luck and avoiding seams and other cracks was a small price to pay for that. The floor had been very pretty when daddy had finished with it, and mommy had said she was really proud of her and then they had kissed. Now it was all bumpy and you could see many of the tiles were broken because of when the ground moved from the explosions it never went back exactly like it was before. Another step. Two more, and she'd be out of the door and in the hallway, on safer footing. Uska wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and ever so quietly padded forward until she could grasp the frame of the door. Supporting herself against it with one hand, she leaped over the last little bit of the pretty floor and onto the solid and quiet plastic floor on the other side. Daddy hadn't had the time to finish this side yet and the explosions didn't hurt the plastic at all.

She steadied herself against the hallway wall although she was getting pretty good at the leap and landing right, like the circus acrobats. She wanted to be completely quiet, though, until she got at least a few meters further away. Before moving, she turned on the balls of her feet, holding her breath for the few seconds she peered intently at the small, unmoving bundle on the bed on the far side of the room. To her relief, her sister was still sleeping even though her fingers were curling and uncurling slowly, and her little lips moved like she was sucking on her bottle which is why Uska had made herself get out of the bed. She didn't want to wake her sister…it felt better when she was awake because then there was someone else too, and Uska wasn't by herself, but the baby was always so _sad_ when she was awake. She couldn't understand where mommy was. Uska liked it better when her sister slept because she wasn't sad and afraid, except sometimes if she had bad dreams, but Uska could help a little with those. Better than when she was awake even though Uska did try very hard then, too. She didn't want to wake her sister, but she had to get more formula. And go to the bathroom.

Sure that she hadn't woken her up, Uska walked a little further away from the door and then glanced around herself to make sure it was safe and swung her little bag off her shoulder and undid the knot she had put on it. Daddy had taught her five different knots. Most of her friends didn't even know _one_, but her father had said that everybody should know how to make knots because maybe you didn't have any clasps that you could use. She knelt down, setting the bag on the floor very carefully and rolling down the sides so she could get the stuff out without dropping it. She pulled out the pistol first, and made sure twice that it was turned on and that it had the blue safety light on too. Daddy said it was very important to be safe with the pistol. Mommy had said that it was more safe without one altogether, but she had still given Uska a pistol of her own when they had come down to the basement.

She held the pistol under her arm for a moment to warm it, and then tucked it into her waistband. It was almost as long as her thigh and pretty heavy and it kind of pulled down on her pants, but not too bad because it didn't fall off from under the waistband and she couldn't very well carry it in her hand anyway because she needed a free hand for the milk. She could carry it in the bag but then it would take too long to take out if she needed it, so she only took the bag out of the room because it was easier to cross the floor with it on her back. She hated the feel of the cold metal against her thigh, but she'd once tried to warm it for over a minute and it was still cold, so she didn't bother anymore. You just winced, and then you got used to it pretty quick. Except she couldn't wear her dresses, because she had to have the pants instead, that she didn't like. Sometimes, but not all the time.

With the pistol stowed away, she pulled the bottle out of the bag and peeled off the dress she had wrapped around it. It took a little while to make her bag quiet when she prepared it, but it gave her something to do at least. There wasn't much to do down here, so anything that occupied her mind for a while was pretty good. She had challenged herself to come up with the best possible way to pack her little bag, and she was pretty happy that she had figured out how she could use just one dress to make it almost completely quiet. Bottle and pistol. She nodded to herself, pursing her lips, and stood back up.

She was almost sure that they hadn't found the entrance because she hadn't heard anything and they weren't all that quiet, like when she and mommy had heard them the last time, but she padded toward the corner very slowly anyway because it would be stupid to just run right into them because you weren't being careful. She wasn't very scared because you could shoot them, but maybe a little. She always tried to make sure her sister didn't know she was even a little scared though. A meter from the corner she pushed herself against the wall and peeked around it, careful that they couldn't see her if they were looking. But there was nobody there, just the empty staircase and the hatch above it, and the doorways to the bathroom and the small kitchen.

She ran to the bathroom first, darting underneath the stairs and straight in, and closed and locked the door after herself. She went about her business as quickly as she could and then, after another cautious peek to make sure the hallway was still empty, dashed right into the small kitchen. She set the bottle down on the counter and then cautiously pulled herself up on it too. Holding on to the wall for support she got up and opened the cupboard, leaning back a little to let the door swing open in front of her. She could have used her power to reach up to the highest shelf because she was pretty good with it, but she wanted to save her energy. Using her biotics too much made her tired and mommy always said you had to eat well when you had been practicing. Standing on her tiptoes, she pulled down the last box of formula powder, and wriggled two foils out of it. There were only five left after these two. She let the foils drop at her feet on the counter, and raised on her toes again to push the box back in its place. She wasn't really allowed to be on the counter, and mommy wouldn't like it if she left everything a Right Mess anyway. Taking a box of soup for herself, too, she closed the cupboard and sat herself on the cold counter, and set to mixing the powder from the foils into water. She was a little worried. The water didn't work as good as it used to, and she thought they might be running out, but the water had never run out before so she wasn't sure if it was possible. And there were so few foils left. Her sister would be really hungry after two more meals. Uska was kind of hungry already herself, but she understood that they didn't have that much stored away here. The baby wouldn't understand, she would just be hungry.

Uska was afraid they would have to go outside soon because they didn't have any more food, to look for mommy or at least one of their neighbors. She had promised to stay in the basement and stay quiet and guard her sister with the pistol and not to go out, but mommy had been gone a long time. She thought it had to be many days, at least, because of how many times she had felt too sleepy to stay awake anymore and had to go to sleep. She could turn on her om-ni-tool to see but she didn't want to because it was a stupid kids' model and it had to be recharged pretty often, and it was almost out of battery. She was saving it for Important Events. Knowing what day it was wasn't that important because the school was closed and she wouldn't go anyway before mommy was back to take her. Even the bottle was out of battery too, it didn't heat up anymore when she tried to turn it on, not since before the last time she slept. She waited for the bottle to fill with water, and then she shook it to make the powder mix so that the baby could drink the formula. She put the bottle under her shirt to warm it up a little in case her sister woke up soon, and then she opened her own meal. It was noq soup and she hated it which is why she had left those boxes for last, but now they were all she had left. It was better than being hungry, anyway. One box after this. And two and a half bottles for her sister. Then she would have to go out.

She cleaned out the soup box and folded it carefully in the recycler so that it would fit because it was getting pretty full because it hadn't been running at all. She took the bottle out from under her shirt and set it back on the counter top while she carefully slid off it herself and dropped quietly on the floor. Grabbing the bottle and sticking it under her arm, she padded out to the doorway to make sure nobody was there, and then quickly ran around the corner over to her bag. She carefully wrapped the bottle back up inside the dress, first over and then you had to go across with the sleeves, and then push it all the way to the bottom at an angle, and then you could slip the pistol on top of it and it would stay in place. She pulled the strings tight and made a Coming Together-knot so it would stay closed. She swung the baggy around her shoulders again, and snuck back across the pretty floor as carefully as she'd come the other way, although now she couldn't jump the last few tiles because there wasn't any plastic floor on the other side, just the bed and the other stuff.

Letting out a breath after making it all the way across without a sound, she crawled up on the bed, careful not to make it bounce or shift as she moved. She always slept on the side of the bed that was not at the wall so that her sister couldn't fall off, but she wasn't sleepy yet so she just put the bag down in one corner and pulled the pistol back out so that it was ready if she needed it and then she lay down behind her sister instead, hugging her a little. She didn't wake from the touch and just snuffled quietly when Uska pulled the blanket off her crest to make sure she didn't get too hot. Uska laid her head down and closed her eyes and reached for the little, bright mind of her sister, trying to surround it with happy thoughts like mommy always did for her when she had bad dreams.


	51. Chapter 50

"Just like the old days, buddy! Ha!" Wrex barked as he smacked Garrus on the back hard enough to make him stumble.

"Just like the old days, Wrex," Garrus agreed, quietly walking forward toward the corner Shepard had just slipped around. It hadn't taken him long to come to trust her implicitly, but the way he felt now was an eerie reminder of those first times of working with the unknown, unproven, brash human—unsure of how good she might be, how she would react when things got rough…and he'd been out of his element then, too, just like he was now.

Sometimes he couldn't tell if Wrex was just yanking his chain with the big dumb krogan act. He had given Shepard a shotgun, true enough, but in doing so he'd also managed to get her to give up her makeshift knife, and bandaged the hand that judging from the state of her arm and her pants had started bleeding quite profusely. Garrus reflected that he'd always liked that particular shade of red until he'd met Shepard and the other humans, as he quietly dictated a message to Miranda to make sure there was a doc available to take a look at the hand when they got the woman reeled back. Her _"Duh?"_, might have made him grin under any other circumstances. Of course she'd already done that. Fortunately Shepard had seemed otherwise fine when he had finally caught up to the pair after a quick stop at the armory. Wrex, actually, appeared worse off—Garrus suspected that his doctors probably hadn't officially cleared him out of bed rest quite yet, so labored was his gait. The bandaging over one eye seemed even more debilitating, causing the krogan to have to swing his head around to be able to see on both sides.

Regardless of his infirmities, though, he'd swayed Shepard to allow him to accompany her. She'd been receptive to Garrus' assistance, too, when he'd shown up with a pistol he'd requisitioned from the armory—along with a helmet for her. It didn't quite fit and it was even looser without anything to attach to at the neck, but the woman seemed happy enough with it. It was scary, actually, how small the signs of less-than perfect clarity were. He couldn't blame Wrex for at least briefly thinking that she was acting perfectly normally—for an invasion, anyway. Thankfully that threat wasn't real…he didn't mind admitting that the latest news about the situation on the Citadel had been a great relief…although he was a bit concerned about the reports of unrest. Keeping the immense, extremely densely populated Ward-cities under control had taken the round-the-clock efforts of two hundred thousand C-Sec officers even at the best of times… Victus may have thought the worst was over, but Garrus wasn't quite so sure. Still…that was a known, manageable threat, unlike the initial fears of Reaper re-activation or worse. They could handle it somehow once Shepard was cared for.

Garrus had swung by the armory to grab the weapon and the helm so that he and Wrex could hopefully steer Shepard somewhere away from other people with her mind off her lack of equipment, but in reconsidering the matter, he was starting to think it might not be a terrible idea to lure the woman back there after all. The armory had guns, obviously enough, but it was also armored _itself_. If they got Shepard there under the guise of getting her some proper armor, he might be able to rig it—or have Miranda rig it—so that they couldn't get back out. He wasn't thrilled about the prospect of being in an enclosed space with a Shepard who might decide that they were her enemies for having locked her up, but with Wrex, he was pretty sure they would be able to handle it between the two of them. And, besides, if it looked like they either couldn't get the area locked down or that it was too dangerous to keep it that way, getting Shepard suited up would gain them at least a quarter hour of time spent…that shouldn't leave long until Liara made her way back.

Wrex beckoned him over impatiently, having overtaken him on the way to the hallway corner never being one for the subtle approach, figuratively or literally. Garrus rounded the corner to see Shepard crouched down at the next intersection and peering back at the two of them. He sped up just a little to get past Wrex. Turning around to walk backwards a few steps as he did, he tried to wordlessly indicate to the krogan that he had a plan and to follow along. Wrex merely stared at him impassively, though whether because he didn't understand or because he did and didn't want to give it away, Garrus couldn't say. He'd learned to read Grunt pretty well, but despite differing from other krogan in many respects, the boy wasn't particularly subtle…and unfortunately that experience didn't help him at all with Wrex.

The plan was worth a shot, anyway. There was no telling how long Shepard would be happy going around hallways without finding anything…and Garrus wasn't at all sure that the absence of enemies would be enough to pacify her.

"Shepard," he called out in a hushed voice, turning around just as the woman was about to slip into the next hallway.

* * *

Etrak swore quietly as he peeked over the top of the dune. Agot stopped in place, quiet as he could, until the elder male looked down toward him and irritably jerked his head to call him over. Agot started crawling up the dune again, imagining himself a sand lizard writhing its way across the burning sand. He bet sand lizards didn't get stupid sand inside their armors, though.

"What took you so long?" Etrak barked when he finally made it up to the top, eyes squeezed almost shut to protect them against the incessant blast of the fine sand blown into their faces by an unrelenting, southwesterly storm wind.

Agot peered at him, thankful for the goggle-like eye visors Urdnot Bakara had given him when the sand storm started, but careful not to make a big deal out of them to avoid angering the elder. "I wasn't sure what you were cursing about."

"Cursing about your slow ass is what I was cursing about," Etrak spat out along with a mouthful of sand. "And that," he continued, poking his finger slightly to the left of where they were facing. "Don't let them see you."

As he craned to look over the dune, Agot saw them too: sheltered at the bottom of another dune, three heavily armored vehicles were parked and around them were standing a good dozen salarians and some twenty armored shapes that he thought must have been the _humans_ that the seer had spoken to him about. Or not the humans she'd spoken of, but the bad ones that were humans too. So Etrak had been right about the barely visible tracks in the sand…the enemy had been near. The wind carried bits of conversation over the sands and into Agot's ears as he increased his aural pick-up volume to make out what they were saying.

"…There's definitely a stronghold there," one of the salarians said, waving his arm in the direction of where the clans had indeed hunkered down in the old ruins.

"Weather like this, we could easily strike them now!" the foremost human shouted back. It might have been a female, but Agot found it very hard to tell.

"You know the orders," one of the other salarians interjected.

"We can't even transmit to orbit in this shit!" the human countered, raising both arms as if to encompass the storm around them.

"So we set a buoy!" the first salarian yelled back. "Marked just the same. Besides, we found it."

"No, I think a bunch of krogan ambushed you, and we had to finish them off," the human said almost quietly enough for Agot to not hear it…and then purple flashed around one of the armored shapes just before a wave of biotic energy caused the salarians to stumble back, a few of them even falling down. In that instant, the other humans had their weapons out and opened fire.

The fight was short and uneven, only a few of the salarians managing to fire back at the humans. As Agot watched on, aghast, the salarians were downed to the last one, and two or three of the humans got hit by the return fire. As soon as the weapons quieted, the remaining humans started dragging the corpses in different directions, away from the sheltered spot. Agot briefly wondered how they were moving in such concert without any orders until he realized that they must have been using their comm channels.

Cursing again, Etrak pulled Agot downwards and yanked him right up to his face. "Get back to the camp and tell them to prepare!" he shouted, already pushing Agot further down the dune. "Start transmitting to them on the short-range as soon as you can, and hide once you get a hold of them!"

"Aren't you coming?" Agot hissed back as he slid downwards, feeling a little pride that the male had given him an important task—and had assumed that he knew the way back. He did, but not everyone would have.

"I've got to see if I can slow them down…those tanks won't take long to get there," Etrak growled back in response, turning to crawl along the side of the dune that would take him to the humans' flank.

Agot nodded at the older male's back and started running toward the ruins.

* * *

{Maybe you should verify that the shuttle is actually carrying them, Dr. T'Soni,} Steve's voice sounded just as Liara had turned to explain the situation to her father.

{What do you mean?} Liara asked, standing up and grasping a railing in the ceiling, unable to just sit down in place. She smiled politely at the few volus sharing the space.

The pilot was silent for a moment. {I can't get any kind of a flight plan…that's not so surprising in itself, but the vector is definitely marking them as heading for the asari fleets,} he finally said.

{I will try to contact them. Give me a moment,} Liara said as she first turned uselessly back toward her father, and then back, settling for pacing the small passenger compartment as she wound her way through the asari command hierarchy listing to try to locate connection details for Onais.

"What's up, babe?" Aethyta asked from her seat behind her.

"I am trying to get a hold of Matriarch Onais," Liara said, turning toward her father. "She is the—"

"Runs security for the _Ascension_. Yeah, I know Onna," Aethyta interrupted with a nod. "I'll get her online…what do you want her for?" she asked, before realizing it herself. "Ah, she's arranging the pick-up for your friends?"

"Yes, precisely," Liara confirmed. "I must…must verify some details."

Her father looked at her curiously, but pulled up her omni "Relax, kid…have a seat. I got this. What details?"

"I wish to make sure that both…Ada Jean and Jack are on board, and to ascertain their destination," Liara replied, shaking her head as her father patted the seat next to hers. She had suffered so much excitement today that she could not simply sit quietly until this situation was resolved. "The shuttle looks like it is going to the asari fleet, not the humans," she added, noting her father's ever more inquisitive look.

"Hrm, give me a moment, then," Aethyta harrumphed just before she held up a finger and tilted her head slightly, indicating that she'd established a connection. "Onais? Aethyta. Listen, you've got a couple of my daughter's friends being picked up?" she spoke quietly into her comms while Liara toggled on the permission for Aethyta to patch a connection into her comms if the need arose.

She had just taken two steps toward her father to be closer to the conversation—as though that would help in some way—when her own channel sounded a new connection. {Yes?}

{Liara?} Kasumi's voice was quiet in the other end. {This is…Ada Jean,} she continued, sounding almost like she was crying. {We got picked up, but…}

{But what?} Liara asked, her heart sinking, clutching her free arm to her chest.

{Jack's been shot,} Kasumi said with a sniffle. {They're telling me we're going to have her _checked up_,} she continued even as Liara sat heavily down on the floor, startling her father up from _her_ seat. {…But it looks really bad, Li. I don't know if she's gonna make it,} she said, bursting into a quiet sob.

_Will it ever end, Goddess?_

Liara did not even notice the second opened connection until she suddenly heard an unfamiliar voice in her ear, and echoed through Kasumi's connection. {Hey…hey…there now…} an asari said, muffling Kasumi's crying.

Aethyta crouched down next to Liara, strong hand gently stroking her shoulder as she sought out her daughter's eyes. "I've got the shuttle on the line now, I patched them to you," she said uncertainly. "Is that… Is it bad?"

Liara merely nodded with a sniff, furiously wiping at her eyes as she struggled for breath, jaw clenched so hard that it hurt. {I…I am sorry,} she forced herself say, {who is this?}

The asari on the other end hushed Kasumi tenderly before answering. {This is Huntress Vehea…Hilla, if it please you, Dr. T'Soni} she amended softly. {Ada Jean has no significant injuries, but the other woman has suffered a large-caliber wound to her lower torso. Possibly from an anti-materiel weapon. She's more or less stable right now and we've mostly stopped the bleeding,} she hastened to add, {but unfortunately Ada Jean is correct that her condition is very serious. We're taking her to the _Gray Dawn_, it's the closest ship with a human-specialized doctor.}

{What happened?} Liara blurted out, knowing the uselessness of the question even as she asked it.

{I'm not quite sure, Doctor,} Hilla replied, indulging Liara's foolishness, {the extraction was hot—that is to say, there was significant combat,} she clarified, {it seems that our barriers and shields were not able to shelter her against that firepower all the way back to the shuttle. We're all safely on the shuttle now, though.}

{…But, but…what about her own barriers?} Liara asked, knowing she was just trying to somehow convince herself that nothing bad could have happened, that it was not true. {I have seen her just _ignore_ vast amounts of fire before! Surely she would—}

{I'm not sure how well you're aware of the situation, Doctor,} Hilla said hesitantly, {but she was unconscious by the time we got to the evac zone. Best we can tell, she was suffering from biotic shock. A mild one, but she had fainted,} she added to assuage Liara.

{Very well,} Liara said, trying to ignore the further bad news—a biotic shock would surely harm her recovery—and trying to keep her voice even and stop herself from trembling, her father's touch managing to help her a little. {You will take her to…the _Gray Dawn_?}

{Yes, Doctor,} Hilla confirmed. {ETA about six and a half minutes. They've been alerted and are ready for her—}

{Is there anything that I can do? I have some—} Liara blurted out, catching herself wishing that she would not have to divert from going to Shepard…because she would not. She knew she should _want_ to go to Jack's side instead, and she was only avoiding it by telling herself that she could not truly help her, that she was not a medical doctor, and—

{No, I'm afraid not,} Hilla said gently, {but be assured, she'll get the best possible care. Actually, I think the best thing you could do is to stay on the line for Ada Jean,} she continued, sounding a little uncertain. {Seeing something like this happen to your partner is always very hard, and I'm sure a friend could—}

{Oh, she is not her—} Liara started, before discarding the correction as irrelevant. {Yes, I will absolutely stay here. I only need a moment…I must inform some other friends of the situation. I will be right back, if that is alright?}

{Of course, Dr. T'Soni,} Hilla replied with relief in her voice. She must have been very concerned about trying to console Kasumi. {I am here with her for now,} she added before Liara set the channel aside.

{James?} Liara asked quietly when she reactivated the channel to the other shuttle, fiercely hoping that—

{He's not on here, Dr. T'Soni,} Steve said to her great relief. {I'll conn—}

{No, no,} Liara hastened to interrupt the man, and tried to steel herself. {Steve, that shuttle is the correct one, and it _is_ heading for the asari fleet. The _Grey Dawn_, to be specific…I am forwarding the details to you so that you can follow it. It is a hospital ship. Jack…Jack has been grievously injured,} she said, her voice catching despite her hardest effort.

* * *

"Too bad they don't have turian armors here, Garrus," Shepard said, dropping the pieces she'd assembled from the shelves on the floor in front of herself.

"Yeah," Garrus agreed. "I should be fine with the shield generator, though—" he started, quickly twisting around as he realized that the woman had just unceremoniously dropped her pants and was pulling off her shirt in order to change into an undersuit. Even though Shepard had always been unconcerned about the matter, he was a bit uncomfortable with it because…because he felt like he should be. He did find most human females pleasing to the eye, after all…their faces resembled that of the turian female with their dominant cheeks more, their even more distinctive lips…not to mention the waist, even the thinnest of which were stocky and robust beyond his wildest dreams and still paired with wide, distinctive hips that gave an overall desirable, familiar, eye-pleasing shape. And unlike the asari, who were almost all very soft and supple, many human females—especially Shepard—had a very defined musculature like any turian female did. There were the soft bits too, of course, especially on someone like Miranda, but it was only in a few places. Plus the hair was interesting, and—

_Oookay, Vakarian, what the hell? This is_ not _the time…_

"Yes, shield generator. Shields…should be good," he said lamely, back still turned, eyes tightly on the lock of the armory door. It was still locked, and Shepard still hadn't noticed.

"The hell you standing over there for?" she demanded after a moment's silence, broken only by Wrex clattering around the gun shelves. "Gimme a hand with these. We gotta move!"

Garrus turned around, hoping to find and finding Shepard in the undersuit, attaching her leg pieces. Garrus strode over to her and, as slowly as he dared, started helping with the assembly of the suit, lifting the pieces to the right spot so that they could attach themselves to the understructure and the rest of the armor. After a few minutes and only a few impatient orders to hurry the fuck up, she finally lifted the helmet up and latched it on.

"C'mon, Wrex, let's move," she called out to the krogan, and walked over to the doorway while Wrex lumbered over from the far end of the gallery, throwing Garrus an inquisitive look.

He could only respond with a shrug. Miranda's last missive had said that Liara was close despite some other situation she didn't go into detail about, and that she'd managed to come to an agreement about a plan B with the resident psychiatrists. As far as he understood, it basically just involved amounts of sedative they had to be careful not to accidentally stick into Wrex.

"No!" Shepard shouted suddenly, startling Garrus. "They've locked us in here! I can't get this open, and nobody's answering on the intercom!"

Gritting his teeth, Garrus took a few steps closer, just about to try to come up with some kind of a pacifying statement when the woman flung herself at the door, managing to actually dent her armor in the process. "Shepard—" he started as she took a step back and slammed back into the obstacle.

A third time she didn't have the opportunity for. Wrex grabbed her by the shoulder almost as soon as she was back up, to keep her from trying again, but Shepard just shrugged off his grip and twisted around, screaming at them incoherently. Garrus almost managed to stop him from trying to grab her in time, then, but as soon as Shepard saw the krogan going for her again, she swatted his hand off with a vicious crack as their forearms collided. Wrex barely had time for an angry snort before the woman rushed forward, crashing into the krogan shoulder first and sending him stumbling back a few steps before falling down on his back.

The twin feral snarls from either side of him as he desperately tried to avoid the enraged krogan—and equally enraged Shepard—rushing into a fight was something that Garrus never wanted to hear again. "Shepard! There _must_ be a second way out of here, you can find it!"

* * *

It had _seemed_ like a good idea, sending Shepard on a hunt for a second way out of the room. Compared to full-on brawl between the two, anyway… He wasn't sure if he'd really expected Shepard to actually follow his suggestion, but she had, forgetting Wrex like turning off a switch. What he _definitely_ hadn't expected was being in a hushed conversation trying to cool Wrex down in one corner of the room and hearing a triumphant yelp followed by a clattering sound and, just as he and Wrex made it past the first gun shelves, the sight of Shepard's legs disappearing into a vent shaft.

Wrex's roar of frustration almost drowned out the sound of the door opening behind them.


	52. Chapter 51

{Alina, I think you have the best overview of the situation?} Lidanya had asked as soon as she had joined the channel, triggering Hannah's activity alert. {The Primarch will be on momentarily.}

{Yes…Lidanya,} Bajic answered with the slightest hesitation just as Hannah replayed the channel's nearly empty backlog and switched it back into her primary, and flicked her eyes at Amita to let her know her attention was elsewhere. {I'll give a rundown as soon as we've got everyone,} the woman said curtly.

{I'm here,} Victus announced just moments after, the exaggerated echo even beyond the normal duality of his voice suggesting he was probably on a detached mic of some kind. {We're just lifting off.}

{Is everyone off the Citadel now?} Admiral Raan interjected before Bajic continued.

{Not quite,} Lidanya answered in Victus' stead, {but the Gardens should be cleared within the quarter hour, and all other essential staff not long thereafter. We are constrained by the availability of small non-atmospheric shuttles. …Which brings us to you, Alina?} she finished, prompting Bajic to start her briefing.

{Yes, thank you,} Bajic said curtly, the small image of her on Hannah's projection nodding in concert. {We're all here, though Admiral Bat has indicated that he's only listening in due to an urgent matter.}

As the woman drew breath, Hannah took a quick glance around the CIC and, reassured by Amita shaking her head, turned back to her console to tune back into the discussion.

{Approximately at 13:20, we started receiving reports of hostilities on the Citadel Wards against high-value targets, initially by C-Sec but shortly thereafter from military channels, shortly being specified as perpetrated by the Keepers,} Bajic said with a heavy breath. {I'm not sure if you're aware, but that one was broadcast live on at least two networks outside of Sol in its entirety.}

{By the news networks covering the funeral?} Raan asked.

{Yes,} Bajic confirmed. {_Their_ broadcast infrastructure had no issues…which brings me to the second event, the collapse of the Wards' communication networks. As you know, they mostly consist of temporary and barely adequate links, and they were unable to sustain the load. So, the warnings about the attack probably reached everyone on the Wards…and then everything went down before we could walk back the threat. This has, evidently, exacerbated the panic on the Wards quite a bit…and caused us all kinds of problems figuring out what's actually going on,} she continued before pausing to take a sip from a glass she reached for somewhere beyond the small projection capture.

{What are we doing about that?} a male voice asked. The flashing channel listing confirmed the man as the mercenary Vosque, as Hannah had suspected.

{C-Sec will hopefully have a briefing on that shortly,} Bajic said uncertainly, {but right now all I can say is that the efforts to communicate are rather varied, but we're trying to get the message out every possible way we can think of. The pressure on the comm infrastructure is easing up a little bit, and I believe C-Sec is trying to get crews to get at least the main networks back online. This is somewhat difficult because of the situation on—}

{Actually,} Lidanya interrupted, {could you go over the rest before returning to the Citadel situation, Alina?}

{…Yes, of course, you're right,} Bajic agreed. {There's not much to tell—which is certainly a good thing in this case. There are no signs of any changes in the Reapers and a good part of them have now been mechanically disabled as well, but we've reinforced guards just in case. This seems like a completely separate incident. The situation in the rest of the galaxy is equally quiet excepting for some civil unrest because of the scare. Or has anyone heard different from their own extrasolar sources?} she asked, receiving a chorus of assuaging negatives in return.

{So what's with the keepers?} Han'Gerrel. The other quarian had gotten online, too.

{The short answer is that we don't know,} Bajic said, sounding decidedly displeased at the fact. {After the whole thing was over—on that part—it's been suggested that the Keepers in fact weren't _attacking_ at all. We're trying to confirm this, but so far only a few teams have made contact with them since their retreat. They are are all reporting the same, though: the creatures are completely non-aggressive.}

{…So we may have killed, what, thousands of them _without cause_?} Raan said sounding as shocked as Hannah felt. Surely there had been _some_ reason…

{Or maybe they realized the attack wasn't such a great idea and are playing dumb now,} Victus suggested—although whether he actually thought it was a possibility, Hannah couldn't tell. She wasn't sure which interpretation she wished were correct.

{Possible,} Bajic responded to the primarch without much conviction. {Either way, they're clearly not much of an actual threat. They are…easy to eliminate and aside from some we haven't been able to check yet, there are no verified reports of any casualties resulting from direct action by the Keepers. We still have not been able to actually communicate with them but unless anyone here believes otherwise, I think we should continue from the assumption that they are not hostile and adjust that as needed. Lidanya?}

{I agree,} the matriarch replied. {Anyone?} she asked, silence her only answer.

{…Good,} Bajic continued, relieved. {So, that all is pretty stable right now. The _real_ problem seems to be on the Citadel, and Tayseri in particular.}

{What _is_ going on down there?} Gerrel asked. {I'm getting reports that the place is basically a war zone right now.}

{As I mentioned earlier, I hope we'll get that briefing from C-Sec soon,} Bajic said with a sigh, {but my understanding is that there are essentially two main problems. The first is that there are somewhere around two and a half million people on each Ward—which is not much less than there would have been before the war. The changes since are that huge swaths of each are uninhabitable, that everyone's armed to the teeth, that C-Sec is down to around ten percent of their peacetime strength, and that the ruthless and otherwise unpleasant people tend to survive in higher ratios in times of war,} she continued, pausing for breath. {The panic of the Keeper attack sparked all kinds of problems from crazies to rioting to looting to settling scores to robberies to murders to gang and clan wars…and some people just like mayhem, evidently.}

{Surely that will die down once we get the message out about the threat being over?} Victus asked hopefully.

{I'd like to think so,} Bajic said, with equal wishfulness, {but it's a big place. And the people causing problems probably aren't the most forward-thinking ones, so the _possibility_ of intervention isn't much of a deterrent. I know we had words about this earlier, but I personally think whatever PR damage there is from sending the military down there outweighs the risk of what might happen without. We can get back to that later,} she amended as Lidanya was starting to say something. {The second problem on the Citadel is that there seem to be actual organized efforts to destabilize the situation further. Some factions, maybe gangs…}

{What could they possibly hope to gain?} Lidanya asked in turn.

{That's anybody's guess,} Bajic said hesitantly. {It could be that there's not even any logical reason for it—but regardless of that, I'm being assured by some C-Sec sources that there are clear signs of very deliberate, methodical opposing forces down there. They're probably mostly responsible for the shuttle downings and the more concentrated attacks on C-Sec and the military units.}

Lidanya's image appeared on the projection now, too, rubbing the base of one of her fringes with two fingers. {It's not…political, though?}

{In the sense of Cerberus, or Terra Firma, or something like that, no, I don't think so.}

{And not something connected to the Keepers?} Raan probed further.

{I can't rule that out,} Bajic replied, {but it seems unlikely.}

{Hm. Very well,} Lidanya said, taking control of the discussion again. {Thank you, Alina. Primarch, do you have a better estimate of when we can be briefed by C-Sec?}

{There seem to be some…disagreements within the command structure about the situation,} Victus said, choosing his words carefully. {The executor assures me that they can resolve those soon and then—}

{Could we just hear out these disagreeing opinions, too?} Han'Gerrel asked pointedly.

{I agree,} Lidanya said approvingly. {I do not believe the situation to be quite as dire as it is made out to be, but I would rather be proven wrong sooner than later if that is the case. Can you make it happen, Primarch?}

{Yes,} Victus said curtly.

{Good,} Lidanya said with a small smile. {I assume it will take a few minutes…I will be back in a quarter hour, I will confer with my staff. And get a change of clothes,} she finished with an uncharacteristically personal note.

{I will do likewise,} Bajic said with a grunt of a chuckle. {Hannah, can I bother you for a sec?}

{Of course,} Hannah replied, saying goodbye to the channel and switching to the private connection Bajic had opened, gratefully accepting the bottle of juice Eris was offering her while Jonsson was preoccupied helping Amita.

{Good news and bad news,} Bajic said as soon as Hannah connected. {Your daughter's awake.}

{She is?} Hannah asked, trying to feign surprise the best she could. The happiness she didn't have to feign, though.

{Yes,} Bajic said, sounding like she smiled briefly. {However, there seems to be a problem…seems she's having a post-traumatic episode,} she continued quickly.

The words didn't quite make sense to Hannah. She understood them, but… {What?}

{She's having a fairly major flashback or something, I'm not quite sure, just got the report from _Tiber_ myself,} Bajic continued calmly. {Apparently she wasn't medicated for CSR nor PTSD, and the shock of waking up must have triggered it.}

_OK, OK, that's not so bad,_ Hannah reassured herself as she tried to calm her breathing down and keep her composure, fervently wishing she wasn't in the middle of the CIC right at that moment. The 'waking' definitely hadn't caused it, but if she knew anything about the condition, the alarm might have if it went out to the hospital ships too. It must have. It must just be that, nothing serious…

{…Anyway, I've arranged for the asari to relieve the battle group a few hours earlier than planned, since there seems to be no risk of an attack there.}

{Thank you,} Hannah breathed out gratefully. {We will head back shortly.}

{Good,} Bajic said. {I'm sure it'll be fine,} she added reassuringly.

Hannah dropped off the channel with a cursory farewell and, even as she beckoned Amita over, jumped straight back on the comms to reach Liara.

The asari didn't answer.

* * *

"What's going on?" Miranda demanded as soon as Liara jumped out of the shuttle, grabbing her by the shoulder and rushing her forward. "What the hell happened to Jack?"

Liara glanced over her shoulder quickly, trying to convey her gratefulness in her nod at the volus admiral. "I am not quite certain," she said, hurrying forward with Miranda on one side and her father and an asari guard on the other. "…Ada Jean and Jack were caught in some sort of a battle on the Citadel and Jack was wounded when they were being rescued."

"Some rescue," Miranda huffed angrily, waving another guard to let them onto the sealed-off deck.

"There is no telling what might have happened without," Liara said, though she was not certain whom she was trying to convince, herself or Miranda, still feeling horrible about having to tell Kasumi that she couldn't come to her side immediately, and not even being able to explain exactly why. It had sounded like the woman understood, somehow, and there was nothing Liara wished more than that being the case. She would be there as soon as she could, she had promised… She was glad that the asari, Hilla, seemed to genuinely care about her charges, so that there was at least _someone_ to offer Kasumi comfort until Steve and James made it there. "How is Shepard?" she asked, returning to what she hated to admit was her more pressing concern.

Miranda quickly appraised her of the situation as it currently stood as they strode toward the back of the vessel where the armory was located, making sure to mention that no-one had been injured—although Shepard herself had a small cut in her hand. "It's nothing," she said with a wave of her hand, noticing that her slight limp had not gone unseen by the ever more concerned Liara.

"We know she wouldn't hurt anybody on purpose," the young asari guard said kindly. "My arm's a little sore, but it'll be fine."

"I am terribly sorry," Liara apologized on Shepard's behalf, worried sick but very glad that the others did not think ill of her bondmate. Liara understood the concept of psychosis, but it was hard for her to comprehend how it could happen—and more importantly, how it felt to Shepard. She fervently wished she had pushed harder in their Meldings… She had felt things Shepard was keeping from her—perhaps even from herself—but she had also felt that the woman was not yet ready to talk about what had happened in those final hours…and so she had not pushed. Maybe that would have avoided the whole problem—

"Don't blame yourself," Miranda said, stopping abruptly, somehow intuiting what Liara was thinking. "If anyone's to blame, it's me. But nothing bad has happened so far," she continued over Liara's protestations, "and with you here, I think it'll stay that way."

"Listen to her, girl," Aethyta added confidently. "It'll be fine."

Miranda was about to say something more, but a terrible roar from the door at the end of the hallway caused all four of them to resume their movement toward it at full run. Barely had the door opened a crack when Liara rushed through and into the room, only to almost run straight into Wrex.

"I'm sorry, Liara, we had her but she _just_ got away through the vent," Garrus said, crestfallen as he turned to Liara.

"Oh no!" Liara exclaimed, the crushing disappointment as she could practically still feel Shepard in the room. "It is alright," she continued quickly with what she hoped was a reassuring small smile both at the turian and Wrex. The two had done well to keep Shepard and everyone else safe this long.

"I…I almost went at her," Wrex grumbled remorsefully, leaning heavily against the wall. "I wouldn't really have hurt her—"

"I know, Wrex," Liara said despite the furious glare at the pair from Miranda. "She is…almost as tough as you, anyway," she continued, trying to sound confident. "Where does this vent go?"

"Nobody knows," Garrus said after exchanging glances with Miranda. "She's not been in there much longer than a minute, though, she can't be far," he added hopefully. "I would've gone after her, but I can't fit in there…"

"I must go in, then," Liara said with a nod. If Shepard managed to fit in through that small thing, then so could she, and she would not give up, not this close. "Perhaps I can catch up to her. You find out where it goes, and head that way to cut her off."

"Are you sure? It's awfully—"

"I have been in smaller spaces, Miranda, I _am_ an archaeologist, after all," Liara said, quickly kneeling down in front of the vent and gathering the hem of her dress to tie it up higher so that it wouldn't get in her way. "Go, we are wasting time," she ordered, glancing back at the others from under her arm.

"Fine. We have you on the comms, but we'll only send text so that there's no possibility of disturbing Shepard. Keep us updated," she added as she turned back toward the door, fingers already flying on her omni.

"That's my kid," Aethyta said proudly as Liara pushed off into the vent.

Liara _had_ been in smaller spaces, that was true enough. She did not wish to add that she was a little bit claustrophobic despite that. It had been much worse before, but her days on dig sites had conditioned her to it somewhat. She still did not like being in any space where she could not turn around, though, and especially if she could not even see behind her. …And this was definitely one of those, she thought with a little flutter of fear in her stomach as she pulled herself forward. She may have had a centimeter or two on Shepard in height but she was also much more flexible and the woman was so much bulkier that Liara—with _her_ shoulders, elbows, and knees brushing against the walls—could not for the life of her understand how she had fit through here. The only thing that was certain was that she would not let foolish fear hold her back, she thought as she slowly crawled forward in the light her omni provided.

The tricks she had used to take her mind off the oppressing walls at the dig sites did not work very well, now, the only other thing that she could think about being Jack. The first time she had met the woman on Hagalaz…how she had very uncharitably thought of her as little more than a barely restrained animal, and the slow strides Jack had made to become first tolerable, ever so gradually even friendly. And she remembered how incredibly good it had felt when the woman had hugged her of her own volition for the first time just a few short days ago. _Please, Goddess…_

Blinking away the tears in her eyes, she felt a moment of panic when her distracting thoughts were torn down by a junction in the narrow passage. For a moment she was terrified, both about not being able to find Shepard, and about not getting out herself. Trying to calm herself down with rapid breaths, she brought up her right hand to see if her omni's temperature or other sensors might be useful for discerning Shepard's direction—and then she noticed a streak of blood in the duct continuing straight ahead, just a few centimeters off the bottom. Nodding satisfied, she ignored her fear and dove in. After a few minutes of ever-narrowing ducts, she finally saw something other than metal walls up ahead. Speaking into her comms in a hushed voice to convey the information, she crawled closer to the exit, a strange, undulating bluish light visible in the air on the other side.

Only as Garrus acknowledged her message did she realize where she had come…it was the water pool that she had seen signs for at the gym. The underwater lights were throwing the wavy patches of light high up on the walls, the rest of the room remaining impenetrably dark even with the small oval of her omni light at the highest setting.

_"We've got it,"_ the text channel transcribed Garrus' speech on the other end as she tried to get her bearings. _"we're outside the gym now, but we'll keep here…there are only a couple exits from the exercise complex, we got them all covered. You see if you can find her. There's some rudimentary surveillance infra here, but there's no movement showing on there._

_"This'd be a whole lot easier if your wife was the kind of soldier that just ran everywhere guns blazing, you know,"_ he added after a small pause.

Liara appreciated the levity that he was trying to bring to the situation. He was right to…she had to remember that it was not truly so bad. All she had to do was to get her to calm down…

The best she could tell, she was all the way up to ceiling of the space, almost five meters up from the floor. She was not certain how Shepard had gotten down, but not trusting herself to make it safely in any other way, she took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders and arms outside the vent and focused on creating a small biotic sphere around herself to slow her fall as she pushed off the wall to get her legs out, and gracefully levitated herself down to the sandpaper floor beneath.

Shining her light this way and that, she tried to figure out the layout of the room and relate it to the diagram that Garrus had sent her. The pool itself was about twenty-five meters long and maybe seven and a half wide, and it was surrounded by a meter or so of floor space before the tightly enclosing walls. In the small oval of her light, she saw the two exits marked on the map, too…one lead to the washing area and the other to some kind of a janitorial space. Biting her lip and admonishing herself on her inability to see any clues when Shepard needed her, she was just about to stride in the direction of the washing area when with a massive splash of water a dark shape exploded out of the pool right beside her, scaring the breath out of her.

"Thank god it's you," Shepard said with a gasp of her own, taking Liara's hand and pulling her into the janitorial hallway even before Liara quite understood what was happening. "Come here, they might see you," the woman said as she leaned her back against the wall almost at the corner, Liara tightly held against herself by the waist.

Struggling to get a grip on the situation and to think through her immense relief and heart-fluttering joy at being in her lover's arms, Liara ignored the cold water water from the armor seeping through her dress and peered through Shepard's visor even as the woman herself peered around the corner into the hallway.

Shepard looked back at her and suddenly twisted around, pushing her to arm's length, violently tearing at her own neck, frightening Liara terribly until she realized that the woman was just trying to get her helmet off. Taking a cautious step forward, Liara brought her hands on Shepard's, gently but insistently pushing them out of the way as she started undoing the latches herself.

"You don't have a helmet," Shepard breathed out as Liara opened the attachments one by one. "You have to have a helmet."

"I do not—" Liara started, interrupted by Shepard lifting the helm off as soon as she had gotten the last connector detached.

"I won't have anything happen to you," Shepard said intensely as she tried to offer Liara the helmet, her hair a matted, sweaty mess, her beautiful face pale and glistening as it always was when the woman let her instinct carry her.

"I know you would not," Liara said with a smile, taking the helmet and dropping it on the floor, and raising her hand to Shepard's cheek. She knew she meant it, but she could see it now, the otherness. The seriousness of it. With a terrible, aching hollow in her chest she saw that there was something between her and her lover…as if those eyes were, for the first time, artificial. Shepard was in there somewhere, terrified and trapped. That brief surge of utter helplessness at her lover's distress was enough to remind her that she _could_ help.

She hated going in like this. She had finally gotten over always explicitly asking for permission after hearing and _feeling_ Shepard's repeated assurances that Liara was always, always welcome, that the union was always welcome. She was finally comfortable enough to do so, but she still only did when she felt confident that her mate was open to it. Recently Shepard had even been able to initiate the Meld, drawing Liara to herself rather than Liara reaching out, or it felt that way. But this she hated, this, now, because Shepard…it felt like Shepard was not in a state where she could consent. "Shepard…" _Goddess, please let her forgive._

"What, dove?" her lover asked, wild eyes barely able to focus on hers.

"Embrace eternity."


	53. Chapter 52

Liara knew they had all made a grave mistake the instant she reached into Eevy…they had wasted all this time trying to stop the woman from protecting them, possibly costing them their lives. She saw the telltale clues everywhere, the tactics exactly the same as when they had been ambushed before…the dry, vile smell of the husks, the reek of ozone everywhere, the indoctrinated agents. The shapes Eevy had been trailing in the hallway, solidifying into the four-legged shapes of the Keepers, sabotaging the ship in preparation for the return of their masters—

…No…no, she wrenched away, violently pushed out the sensations, the thoughts, constructing the nothingness to protect them as she had once before, leaving nothing but Eevy. Into the pure void, a sphere of the blackest black and brightest light with nothing but the two of them, all things outside its barrier, unable to return, thoughts and sensations furiously assaulting it to get in, but unable. Sound dying, the feel of the air, pushed out, sealed off, the throb of the sphere slowing, slowing until it became perfectly still.

_No…focus on me, love. I am here, focus on me…push everything else away. Nothing can remain within. I am here._

* * *

"Ouch!"

"Sorry," Aethyta said, not sounding the least bit sorry. "Your ass'll be a fucking gorgeous shade of purple for a few days, but doesn't seem to be anything serious," she estimated with a cocked eyebrow.

"Thanks," Miranda said uncertainly as the asari stood back up. "Gorgeous purple, huh?" she said, gingerly rubbing her thigh below the contusion and pretending to look the matriarch up and down. Two could play this game.

Garrus cleared his throat, offering his arm to pull Miranda up from the sofa that he'd demanded she sit on to avoid stressing her ever more sore hip until checked by a doctor. Evidently Liara's father had been close enough to one.

"Seriously?" Miranda asked with a disdainful look at the turian but, as the tight pain caused her to wince when she shifted her leg just a bit, grabbed the hand and pulled herself up all the same. "Anything?" she asked of nobody in particular.

They'd been staked out at the main entrance for a few tense minutes since Liara's last message—all fifteen of them, at this point. In addition to herself, Aethyta, Garrus, Wrex, and Sienni, there were several psychs and doctors as well as quite a few MPs and guards. Even one of Wrex's entourage was here, the others sent with guards to the two emergency exits from the gym. Each passing second increased the tension, still nothing visible in the cameras or the motion sensors in the complex, and Liara's comm channel ominously quiet. Just as she and Garrus shared a look, both thinking that they'd need to move in soon, one of the guards yelped as a dark shape moved through the gym lobby in one of the camera feeds. Garrus waved the others a little further back as he stepped up to the doors, pausing for just a moment before tapping the lock open and cautiously walking back to Miranda's side.

A few excruciating seconds later, the faintest suggestion of movement at the back of the short, dark hallway leading into the gym transformed into Shepard purposefully striding out, armored but unhelmeted, grimly carrying Liara in her arms by supporting her under the knees and the upper back. The asari's arms were draped around Shepard's neck, her head resting against the woman's chest plate.

"Shepard…?" Miranda asked with a tingle of dread creeping up her spine when Shepard stopped in the middle of the half-circle the assembled made, just a few meters away from Miranda. "Is Liara okay?"

"I am fih…fi…ne, Miranda," Liara muttered before being reduced to a retching cough, Shepard leaning her head down to hush the asari, kissing her on the forehead even as Miranda and Garrus both breathed out in barely concealed relief.

"She's feeling a little faint," Shepard said, taking a self-conscious, almost shy look at the gathering around her and hugging the asari tighter to herself.

"Meld sickness?" Aethyta asked, walking up to the pair and taking a look at Liara while the others still kept their distance.

"Yes," Shepard said.

"Yeah," Aethyta harrumphed in response. "That's from my side of the family. Sorry about that, kid," she said, patting Liara on the head before grabbing Shepard gently by the side of the neck with her other hand. "Good to see you topside up, doll," she said with a grin, eliciting a hesitant little smile from the woman in return.

Miranda exchanged another look with Garrus, both of them probably thinking about the same thing. Miranda was feverishly trying to think how to broach the subject when Wrex stepped up and craned his neck to look straight back at her and the turian.

Huffing at them disdainfully, he turned back toward the commander. "You still crazy, Shepard?"

"…No, Wrex," the woman answered. "I think I'm fine. For now at least," she added quietly.

"Good," the krogan grumbled, the matter evidently settled.

_That's one way to do it…_ Miranda thought, observing the distinct feeling of ease descend upon the hallway, the guards—who to their credit had at no point appeared particularly menacing—breaking from the semi-circle into their own small groups, the doctors hushedly conferring on the other side. She had to admit that everything about the woman, her posture, speech, eyes, everything seemed normal. "Well, I'm glad you're back to yourself. Do you…do you remember what happened?" she asked carefully, seeking out the woman's eyes.

"Yeah, Miranda…" Shepard replied in a wondering voice, taking a few steps closer. "I remember. I remember exactly…I'm not sure _why_ I thought what I did, but I remember it made perfect sense at the time.

"I didn't hurt anybody, did I?" she asked, clearly frightened of the answer, eyes flicking down to her blood-stained hand.

"Not really, no," Miranda replied quickly. "That's from when you grabbed the glass shard."

"Thank the Goddess," the woman said with visible relief, the asari faintly smiling in concert. "I remember I knocked you down…Sienni, thank you," she continued, using the name the asari supplied when Shepard turned to look at her. "You're alright?"

"Yes, Commander, no harm done."

"Thank the Goddess, then…I'm sorry about that," Shepard repeated.

"No apology for me?" Wrex growled.

"And Wrex, you too, even though I know getting knocked on your ass won't hurt much beyond your pride," she added, finally seeming to lose some of her lingering tension.

"I let you because of your delicate condition," Wrex said impassively, crossing his massive arms and flicking his chin dismissively. "Like blood rage, except even stupider."

"Is that a challenge, big boy?" Shepard asked with a hint of a grin now.

"You're not much of a challenge," Wrex replied matter-of-factly.

"It is _on_, you oversized turtle!" Shepard spat out with a sneer.

"Name the time, puny human!" Wrex barked back, tensing the ship's crew back up like a jolt of electricity.

To their evident surprise, Shepard burst into laughter along with the weakly giggling Liara. Even Miranda had to struggle against a grin when the woman lightly headbutted the massive krogan on his crossed arms. "Puny human…oh, god. Will you marry me, Wrex?" Shepard asked, grinning up at the old warlord. "Sorry, Lilo," she added, looking down at the asari in her arms.

"It…it is alright, Shepard, I understand," Liara mumbled with a tired grimace of a smile. "You can put me down now, too. I… I can walk."

"I know you can, baby, but I love carrying you around," Shepard said with a faraway smile. "Hm, maybe I'll keep you after all," she added as she lifted the asari higher despite her light, admonishing slap on the woman's chest plate, and leaned down to kiss her.

_Will the krogan ever stop surprising me?_ Miranda thought in vague amazement as she turned to the MPs, doctors, and other crew, curtly thanking them and sending all but Sienni to report back to their duties, instructing them to inform the XO that the situation was over.

"I still love you too, Wrex," Shepard was saying to the krogan with a smile, probably at least subconsciously very happy to have been relieved of the tension of what must have been a very awkward and embarrassing situation for her.

"Yeah," the krogan rumbled pleasedly. "C'mon, we've got places to be, you've wasted enough time already."

"Yes," Liara chimed in, actually managing to keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time again. "We must get you to the cabin to get you bandaged and into some fresh clothes," she said, Shepard raising an eyebrow but already turning toward the elevators.

"Not so fast," Miranda cut in, confident enough that Shepard indeed _was_ herself, but not feeling comfortable enough to make a prognosis for the future. "We need to do a psych evaluation before—"

"There is no _time_, Miranda…she is alright, now," Liara said as she peered at her from behind Shepard's arm, voice brooking no disagreement. "Trust me."

"I know she's fine _now_, Liara," Miranda countered even as she and Garrus hurried after the pair and Wrex and Aethyta. "But there's no telling if she'll—"

"I am the best medicine there is, Miranda, and you know it. She needs to be where I am."

* * *

{You're cleared for landing on the receiving deck, _1-184-SN62_,} the _Danube_'s flight control officer confirmed as Steve lined the shuttle up with the topmost of the massive hospital ship's two shuttle bays. The top one was usually reserved for incoming patients, but with low traffic and a short stop, they had been cleared on it rather than the shuttle bay proper. {Entrance B, second one on the right from entry direction. Deck call _62_.}

{_62_. Confirm receiving deck, confirm B. Initiating final approach,} Steve acknowledged, carefully managing their deceleration with the fore thrusters to bring their speed down to something that could be handled in the small atmosphere of the bay. Thankfully the FCO had permitted him to use the receiving deck…this way he could just get wheels down and pick up the cargo without having to go through the hassle of the normal docking procedures that would cause a delay of several precious minutes. {Twenty seconds, James,} he said, switching to the intercom.

{Got it,} the big man grunted from the back.

Steve nodded to himself as he brought the forward velocity to a mere few hundred klicks just in time for entry through the environmental barrier. He felt a little bad about his distrust of James' ability to handle the situation…he'd been convinced his friend would just completely lose it, but the man was a consummate professional. Upset, sure, but definitely on the ball. Well, there'd be time enough to make amends later… {_Danube_, in atmo. Setting down next to B.}

{We've got you, _62_. Your cargo is ready to go, count is four,} the FCO confirmed. {You've got the window for one hundred and fifty, depart at will.}

{Confirm one-fifty,} Steve answered, verifying that the timer had started on his console, too. He'd have to remember to send a case of beer to the FCO—the step of keeping all other traffic on hold for two and a half minutes was just extraordinary. It took him seven of his seconds to set the craft down about five meters from the assigned entryway, beyond which he saw the four shapes in light atmo gear. He was a little surprised at that…he'd only expected two.

Dr. T'Soni had quickly patched in the asari shuttle at Dr. Lawson's behest, and the asari medic—Rila something—had reiterated their plan to take Jack to the nearest human-equipped trauma ward—which had turned out to be the asari hospital ship _Gray Dawn_—so that they could start treatment immediately. They had also already alerted the humans for assistance, but Lawson had taken over at that point. Switching away from the channel but for a few seconds, she'd gotten directly through to ChiefMed and secured the same pair of surgeons who had also treated the Commander. Dr. Dajeer Laksh was apparently reputed to be the best abdominal surgeon in the fleets, and Dr. Cintzia Kalimoff one of the best, if not _the_ best neurosurgeon, and the pair had worked together for a long time.

Watching James slap the entrance door open and all five shapes running toward the shuttle from the corner of his eye, Steve went through a few minor adjustments to account for the extra weight and life support requirements of the two unexpected visitors.

The doctors had still been stationed on the _Danube_, and fortunately both in non-critical duties at the time…but the _Danube_, like the rest of the human hospital ships, was almost ten minutes further off than the _Gray Dawn_ for the rescue shuttle. Lawson had approved the asari plan of taking Jack to the _Gray Dawn_ straightaway, and sent Steve and James to collect the doctors and transport them over instead. It meant almost an additional twenty minutes before the humans could get to work…but the asari medic had said that she didn't think they could afford delaying the initial treatment by the ten minutes it would take to go straight to the humans—something that did absolutely nothing to ease Steve's mind.

Behind him, he heard James practically tossing the doctors into the ship and starting to strap them in. {All aboard,} the man barked into the intercom. {Few secs and we're ready.}

{Roger,} Steve confirmed, almost ready himself. {This is Lt. Cortez, I'm the pilot. Just a few moments, we were only expecting two people.}

{Yeah, we picked a couple extras,} a female voice said. {I'm Cintzia…Dajeer's also here, and we had time enough to take a look at the data the asari sent that we picked up a gyn and a plasto. Ah, sorry, Aki Matsuo is a gynecologist, and An Ji is a plastic surgeon,} she added, correctly guessing that the jargon wasn't entirely clear to the two soldiers.

{Got it, glad to have you,} Steve said, hoping to sound more happy than aghast at the thought that two doctors wasn't sufficient. {James?}

{Good to go,} the man said even as he clapped Steve on the shoulder and dropped heavily into the co-pilot's seat. {Make it quick.}

{Roger. ETA nine minutes, forty-five seconds.}, Steve replied, and noted his timer had 37 seconds remaining as switched onto the _Danube_'s channel. Enough to get out in the window. {Control, _62_, taking off now.}

{Acknowledged, _62_, you're clear. Good luck.}

* * *

"Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Shepard demanded, wincing when Miranda poured the glue mixture over the wound in her palm, Liara buttoning up Shepard's blue and gold uniform on the other side to help speed up the process with the woman left one-handed for the time being.

Garrus was crouched down in the corner, trying to make himself useful for the few minutes getting Shepard ready took by gathering up the pieces of glass and other debris with Aethyta despite Shepard's protestations that she'd do it herself. Truthfully, he welcomed having at least something to do after the women had let him back into the room when they were mostly decent…his intense relief at having Shepard back to herself had been very short-lived as Liara and Miranda's heated conversation had reminded him that they were just moving from one crisis to another. He'd tried to talk to Victus, but the Primarch was preoccupied by the same conference that Wrex had been called into by Grunt or one of his other lieutenants. The more Garrus heard about the situation on the Wards, the more worried he was becoming…something was afoot there. He'd have to get in touch with some of his old contacts, if any were still around. And even that wasn't enough to distract him from the worry over Jack, made all the worse for the stupid feeling that everything _should_ have been alright, that it made no sense that she'd get hurt now, after everything was said and done. Pitching the pile of shards in his hand into the recycler, Garrus stood back up and turned toward where Shepard was seated on the bed.

"I have her," Liara said with a meaningful look at Miranda, straightening up and lightly touching Shepard's cheek as she spoke. "There _was_ an actual alarm that was broadcast, the one that triggered your…episode, do you remember that?"

"Not really…I only remember the one I imagined, I guess," Shepard said, rubbing her neck with a frown.

"Well, the real alarm was about some trouble on the Citadel," Liara said, sounding amazingly calm and collected, moreso than Garrus would have credited himself for at least. "It turned out to not be as serious as it was initially thought to be," she continued, wisely leaving out the specifics to keep the scares to a minimum…although from her words Garrus suspected that the asari was also upholding some kind of a light mental connection to Shepard to help her stay calm.

"But?" Shepard prompted, an echo of so many briefings that Garrus almost smiled despite the gravity of the situation.

"…But there is some disturbance down on the Citadel," Liara continued hesitantly. "And Kasumi and Jack were down on the Tayseri Ward…And Jack has been wounded—"

"Fuuuuck!" Shepard growled as she dropped off the bed, teeth grit and hands raised in front of her, palms upwards in a taloned rage that shook her entire body and gave Garrus a moment's pause before he classified it as just regular Shepard-anger.

"It is very bad, Shepard," Liara said, her voice breaking.

"Steve should be here shortly. He just messaged that he's taking off from the _Gray Dawn_," Miranda said, catching Shepard's eye as the woman pulled Liara into a tight embrace and muttered soothingly into the asari's ear. "We could've looked for other transportation but it would've saved us a few minutes at most, and you needed patching up…besides, nothing we can do over there except wait. We should head down as soon as you're ready, though."

"You're coming, too?" Shepard asked, eyebrow raised.

Miranda nodded with a shrug.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for all the comments and contacts on the last one. It's incredibly nice to hear from you guys.**


	54. Chapter 53

_"I apologize for not answering earlier. We are both fine,"_ Liara's message said as Hannah looked it over for what must have been the thousandth time, anxiously waiting for Liu to finish docking the shuttle into the massive hangar bay of the hospital ship. So close now. So close. _"One of our friends has been gravely injured, and we have come to visit the asari ship _Gray Dawn_ to await news on her. I think Eevy could use a happy surprise, if you feel well enough to join us when you arrive back in Earth space. I will inform you if we return to the _Tiber_ or relocate otherwise, but it is likely that we will still be on the _Gray Dawn_ at the time of your return. We are currently in Waiting Ward 4."_

The message was over five hours old, now, but it had been comforting enough after her initial scare over Bajic's news that Hannah had been able to handle handing off the guard responsibilities and point the battle group back toward Earth without having to fend off fear for her daughter, or Liara for that matter. Hannah was sure there was something the asari wasn't mentioning—probably to not alarm Hannah, in case she hadn't heard about the episode—but she knew she could trust Liara when she said everything was fine _now_. Hannah had even had the chance to go off-duty for an entire four hours as the Group made its way back through Sol, spending a good hour finishing her interrupted meal with the still-bubbly Eris and then getting a little bit of luxurious, uninterrupted sleep until it was time to rejoin the very loose formation of what remained of the 5th Fleet as they arrived to Earth space. Strictly speaking, protocol would have demanded her to stay aboard for another few hours when they arrived, dealing with this and that, but Amita had practically shoved her into the shuttle and on her way to the hospital fleet. Truthfully, Hannah couldn't really even pretend that her sense of duty were great enough that she would've felt it necessary to object leaving the bureaucracy to her XO. She'd just have to make up for it later…

{Door's open, ma'am,} Liu said cheerfully over the intercom just as the heavy clanks of the auxiliary power connectors turning on told Hannah the very same, probably quite glad to be back in civilization and now free of his boss, too, a whole two weeks' shore leave just a return trip away.

{Thanks, Jon,} Hannah said with an appreciative nod at the shuttle pilot, fumbling for ages with her straps in her nervousness before finally managing to unbuckle herself. {Got anybody you need to look for out there?} she asked over her shoulder as she stood up and reached up to the storage compartment to pull out the small assault pack with a few days' stuff that she'd opted for instead of a larger travel bag. {I know it sucked for a lot of people to get sent to guard duty with barely any time to try to get things straightened out with family and friends after the…well, the end.}

{For you too, ma'am, if I got it right, and if you don't mind me saying. But what'cha gonna do, right? Yeah, I've got some family to locate still…most are accounted for in one way or another,} the man replied with that distinct sad tone that was more the norm than the exception these days. {The wife's been given an orbit pass, though, so we'll have a couple days together at least.}

{Glad to hear that,} Hannah said with a solemn nod, clapping the man on the shoulder as she turned and crouched to get out of the cockpit. {Alright, I'm off. I'll see you next week sometime. Remember to get some shut-eye, too. I don't want you falling asleep at the wheel,} she said jokingly, disconnecting herself from the shuttle's comm systems.

"Aye aye, ma'am!" the pilot called out after her as she ducked out of the shuttle and into the connective hallway and airlock beyond, his earlier cheerfulness somewhat restored.

The _Gray Dawn_ seemed awfully busy for a trauma ship this long out of battle, she noted immediately as she emerged into the visitor reception area, rebinding her hair after the decontamination procedures, the bustle almost overwhelming after the relative sparseness of the _Orizaba_ even at the worst of times. Bajic had told her not to worry about the Citadel, so she hadn't—not like there was much a fleet Admiral a few hours from mandatory leave could've done about it anyway—but the only thing she could think of to account for this amount of traffic was if they were taking heavy casualties down there. She'd have to actually tune into the news networks to figure out what was going on soon. Dodging varyingly worried, weeping, angry, bored, solemn, and even a few happy asari, she navigated past the queues snaking up to the few reception desks at the far end of the large room, bobbing and craning to see around and over the taller asari and feeling like a mongoose until she finally spotted a holosign flashing into an arrow pointing at "Deck 7, Waiting Wards 3 & 4, ICU Ward," through a hallway leading up to the ship's central elevator lobby.

She glanced at her messages and call logs once more as she wound her way toward the lifts, only bumping into two people as she tried to make sure she had in fact come to the right place. Liara hadn't sent any further messages, at least, and she was entirely too conscientious to have forgotten to do so…so they had to be here still. Had to, she told herself as she waited for the elevator to arrive, barely able to keep herself from shaking with excitement, her heart racing, feet light as they carried her into the crammed cylindrical space as though of their own volition as soon as the doors parted.

Any doubts she had about the location were squashed nearly the instant she stepped into the small space, the olfactory memory triggered by the slightest hint of vanilla, pear, and fine cigars in the air almost overwhelming even before she recognized Aethyta's grinning face when the matriarch heedlessly shoved her way past the other asari and wrapped her free arm around Hannah in a warm greeting.

"I was wondering when you'd get your ass down here!" the matriarch declared loudly as she disentangled from the awkward embrace, one arm full of food packs of various kinds.

"Yeah, took a little longer than I would've liked. Good to see you, Thee," Hannah said with a smile at the matriarch—and an apologetic glance at the other occupants—just as the elevator announced they'd arrived on the seventh deck,the doors sliding open silently. "You need a hand with those?" she asked as she walked backwards toward the door, hoping not to bump into anyone.

"What? Oh, these," Aethyta replied, shifting the supplies into both arms and hefting them with exaggerated ease as the two managed to squeeze out of the elevator and into a smaller lobby space. "Nah. 'Sides, I think you'll need both of yours soon. C'mon," she continued, jerking her shoulder toward the hallway on the left marked with a large _4_-sign. "Went to get some food for everybody because this waiting is, honestly, boring as all fuck. They're probably hungry waiting for me to get back."

"Oh, still no news about…?" Hannah asked uncertainly, guiltily realizing she hadn't actually asked who it was who had been wounded as she followed Aethyta into the hallway past the smaller crowds of visitors, doctors, and nurses.

"About Jack? Nah. It's been…hell, don't even remember how many goddamn hours," the matriarch said over her shoulder, "and we've got nothing beyond that she'll almost certainly live. I mean that's good and all, but ain't exactly filling me with fluffy thoughts."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound very promising," Hannah agreed. She'd seen her share of injuries and then some, and still operating at this point raised some questions about the _quality_ of li—

"Look at that. Isn't that just the sweetest fucking thing?" Aethyta asked in a stage-whisper as she came to a sudden halt, nudging Hannah with her elbow as she did, and nodding her head toward the room ahead. She may have said something else after that. Hannah didn't hear it if she did.

At first she didn't see them behind Grunt and another, older, but almost equally massive krogan talking with Dr. Lawson and Garrus, the turian. Then, just at the same moment as the asari looked up and straight at her, Hannah spotted Liara seated against the back wall…and then Eevy, sleeping peacefully on Liara's shoulder.

Hannah was barely aware of the asari's happy smile of recognition and the small nod she beckoned her over with. The room ceased to exist, time itself seemed to stop as Hannah found herself standing in front of the asari, having navigated through the crowded space without even noticing. All that fit in her consciousness was her little girl, beautiful in her pristine blue uniform, one hand in her lap and the other in Liara's, massive frame comfortably leaning against Liara and neck craned to lay her head on Liara's shoulder, the shock of dark brown hair mussed and mushed against the asari's neck and cheek. Her features so peaceful and relaxed, soft breaths just audible, eyes fluttering behind closed lids… Always her little girl, no matter how big she might have gotten.

She could barely see for her tearing eyes, now, and her chest hurt for air as much as her cheeks did from the smile she could do nothing to prevent. Liara looked on expectantly as Hannah slid off her backpack and crouched down, elbows leaning on her knees and clasped hands pressed against her lips as she just reveled in the joy of the moment, the quite literally overwhelming _need_ to hold her child for the first time in five years rapidly winning the battle against the less selfish desire to let her sleep for a while longer. She was vaguely aware of the complete silence around her when, encouraged by Liara's urging glances, she finally succumbed and reached out. Ever so gently she laid her hand on Eevy's, squeezing it lightly, eyes focused on nothing but her daughter's face…and then the bursting joy she couldn't imagine any greater doubling when she saw Eevy's eyes flutter open, blinking the sleep away once before recognition slowly lit up her entire face.

"Mom…? _Mamma!_" Eevy squealed as she leaned forward, scooping Hannah up into a crushing embrace.

Hannah let the girl lift her uselessly bawling mother up, not caring who saw her weep into her daughter's chest as she hugged her tight. Nothing was the same as your child hugging you back.


	55. Chapter 54

_Well, that was easy._

Feron was pretty sure that nothing good had _ever_ come from thinking that, but it had seemed fitting in the current circumstances. Had. Of course, as with all things, it was always relative…

It had been simple enough a guess that asari forces sent into the Shrike could only have had one initial target: the Parasc mining colonies, mostly held by asari corporations and staffed by asari personnel along with a sizable number of orphaned vorcha raised by the asari into a hardy—and importantly, much less violent—workforce.

A few of the merc groups he'd hired to assist in the search had been directed to the Kyzil system, specifically, but none of them had reported back yet. Despite his conviction that Parasc was the best starting place for the search for Linesse Alene, it wouldn't have been possible to make the searches too direct—and especially not about particular individuals, not yet. If they couldn't be found this way, the searches could possibly be made more focused as more and more other people would start hiring investigators to find loved ones; when another one or two search orders wouldn't stand out from the mass. For now the mercs just had instructions to look for _any_ asari, dead or alive, and send Feron back the details after assisting the located in whatever way they could.

He himself had made his way directly toward Kyzil after his jump into and refueling stop at Xe Cha, and upon arrival found it to be outright crowded with Reapers, probably there to deal with the vorcha homeworld, Heshtok…floating uselessly around the planet there had been dozens of destroyers and at least three capital ships that his scanners had revealed as he had made his way toward Parasc intersecting the main planet's orbit. There had been no intact vorcha ships in evidence—nor any from the other species, the vorcha not being a particularly attractive target for either assistance or marauders.

The planet itself had been suspiciously quiet, as far as he had been able to determine during the quick pass. He wasn't sure how much communications traffic he should have been expecting, but a hasty search had netted him some pre-war scans that did show a reasonable amount of communications infrastructure, if not anything comparable to planets inhabited by the more civilized species…even Tuchanka, whose comms visualization looked positively radiant in comparison. There had been _some_ activity, indicating that life on the planet hadn't been altogether exterminated despite its small size. Whatever creatures still survived might have to wait for rescuers for some time…as far as he could tell, the Reapers had destroyed every single comms buoy in the system and the signals he'd seen had been nowhere near strong enough to get through the relay—at this point, anyway. It's possible that they had been broadcasting out earlier, but this far out, power conservation might have become an issue…although, admittedly, the vorcha were in his experience not particularly concerned about anything but the immediate present.

Parasc had been a grave disappointment when he had finally arrived. The entire planet had been subjected to an orbital bombardment, and if the ship's report was to be trusted, it was very close to breaking apart into at least three pieces. He wasn't sure he should've been expecting anything better from the scarce info he had managed to gather from the time after the Reapers had taken the system over, but the finality of the situation had been quite vivid as he had viewed the surface imagery from up close. The Reapers had taken no chances here. He had lingered a little while longer, performing closer scans against all hope, looking for _any_ signs of life or at least reliable clues that someone had managed to escape—or that other rescuers had been here previously—before he had had to admit defeat and up and set course back for Xe Cha. He wasn't entirely sure what had made him—

_Through the doorway into the cockpit he can see the lights on the dashboard slowly flicker on and off, the top two rows alternating between a cyan and a yellow, the lower ones still visible to him in arrangements of more traditional blue and orange. In the living area the scan system lazily draws vectors and coverage patterns into the projection of the system floating in front of him, the waveform graphs and data feeds scrolling past faster than he can read. He slides his hand on the rough woven surface of the sofa to brush off a mote of dust. It sticks to his finger, refusing to move when he blows on it lightly. High on the left, the image of a beautiful asari news anchor speaks with an unseen interlocutor about the situation on Thessia as he rubs his finger against his thumb. The light of the sun through the filtering viewport shifts on the floor as the craft makes a small course adjustment. A fragrant, earthy scent drifts lazily in the air, mixing into pleasant aroma of the ship, still new and untarnished. The food dispenser chimes and opens, releasing more of the tantalizing smell, signaling his meal ready. He flows into a memory of his blind mother explaining how she could hear the difference between two computer speakers when he wonders how she can know the food is ready. He recovers, refocuses himself with a mantra for the briefest moment before instructing the ship to sift the communications data it had captured within the system for differences in originating hardware signatures._

It had taken the ship a few hours and several QEC bursts to more powerful computing banks to locate several signal sources that stood out from the rest…and when he'd cross-referenced those with sensors for eezo and anything else he could think could possibly indicate the presence of a spacecraft—useless info by itself in a system that had witnessed a recent battle—he had found three approximate locations… all on the surface of Heshtok. All within a radius of a hundred clicks from eachother.

* * *

Waiting for the ship to carefully descend to an orbit that was both far enough to be safe and close enough to be able to get good visual and sensory data from the planet's surface, Feron found his thoughts circling around one thing. He was becoming seriously worried about his more and more frequent involuntary lapses into memories. He supposed he should have been thankful that they were the _good_ memories, at least, but it seemed to be happening daily, now. He had been taught techniques to control his thoughts to only dip into memories instead of falling into them in the normal course of things, like all drell children. The dipping wasn't so different from how the other species remembered things, he supposed, just cursory glances at the past to inform his present… The occasional trigger into a complete memory wasn't _uncommon_ as such, but not terribly frequent either. For the most part he had always been able to choose when he wished to explore something deeper, but no more. Increasingly he felt the memories reaching out to him, and it scared him. Even though they rarely lasted more than a few seconds, even that could be disastrous at the wrong time. To prevent problems, he had done as much as he was able to automate everything about the network and about the ship itself, but he knew he would have to see someone about it… sooner rather than later. He had done cursory searches about the ailment and, to his guilty relief, he'd found that he was far from the only one suffering from a recent onset. There'd always been those who were… who were too weak to live in reality. Everybody knew someone like that in the neighborhood at least. Now, with the war, it seemed that vast numbers of cases were surfacing in every refugee center housing drell and, while overwhelmed, the doctors seemed to be of the opinion that they could be treated, that it was more of a psychological thing than anything else—not unlike stories of a similar wave when the great migration to Kahje took place. Still… he certainly did not want Liara—or Zoe—to find out; he couldn't risk the weakness personally or professionally. Liara had already had him benched way too long after Hagalaz. He'd get through, surely. After this mission was finished and the sisters found, then he would go. He could find the best assistance, learn new techniques to tide him over…

The VI interrupted his thoughts with a cheerful chime, signaling that it had decided this to be the optimal height above the planet. To Feron's surprise the shuttle was on a synchronous orbit barely a hundred klicks above the surface, but upon review of the data the VI was using to estimate surface threats, he had to agree that the vorcha were extremely unlikely to have anything that would pose a risk to the craft even this close down. He prepared the defenses anyway while the planetary scanners set to work trying to glean as much data as possible from his small search area, finally seating himself back on the sofa in the living area. With small adjustments, he rotated the ship so that the far side of the room was directly pointed at the surface of the planet. While such a maneuver was strictly speaking completely unnecessary as he could direct the cameras in any direction he liked, it helped avoid a mental disconnect when he activated the visual projection that filled the entire wall and parts of the ceiling and floor with a one-to-one size image of the planet underneath—exactly as though there was nothing but glass on that side of the craft. Superimposed on that, he called up a HUD with the starting search area and other relevant information.

Some minutes into the search, Feron alternating between reviewing the more urgent data from the Network and staring down at the planet—rather ugly even from this height—in fascination, the graphical search overlay drew a circle in the upper part of one of the three original circles that lay within the larger search radius. Accepting the offered view with a tap on his omni, he was treated to a zoomed view of the area. He wasn't quite sure of the exact capabilities, but by the look of it the highest-resolution image he could get would be around fifty by fifty meters over his three-by-three surface… and even the five hundred by five hundred that the software had initially treated him to was quite clear enough for him to see the first vessel, crushed as it was against what looked like a very, very lively volcano.

He didn't hold out much hope, initially, but as he moved the focus closer, he was surprised to find what looked like a cargo door ajar in the slightly more intact back section of the ship, and what were undoubtedly vorcha corpses. A dozen or so, strewn on the ground close to eachother some ten meters away from the shuttle. And there, hidden behind a rock formation closer to the shuttle, two armored humanoid shapes, also sprawled. There was no movement in sight save for the slow flow of lava just at the edge of the picture… wait. The sign on the armor… Eclipse? He couldn't be quite sure, but it looked like an Eclipse logo. No wonder he hadn't received any reports yet. This _could_ be good, in an abstract sort of way. The Eclipse would likely know there was a problem at some point and send reinforcements. Or not, preferring to forget about the contract instead—if these were even here at his behest. It could be a coincidence, though he wasn't inclined to believe in those.

He scanned the wider area again, but did not find much beyond some kind of a crude truck-like vehicle that seemed to move on wheels—or had, anyway, before the radiating heat from a nearby lava flow had ignited any flammable parts of the thing. It might have belonged to the vorcha but there was no way to tell now. With a mix of excitement and dismay, he stored the coordinates of the crash site and had them immediately transferred into the external data network along with his current status information in the event anything happened.

Just as he was about to direct the view to the rightmost one of the three signal locations, the VI chimed a warning about a group of weak electromagnetic signatures in the vicinity of the third remaining location, barely detectable even from this close up. He quickly approved switching the view there, trying to make sense of the scene in front of him.

Through what must have been a vast field of some kind of grass or bush, meters tall, he saw dozens of small vehicles varyingly clustered and of innumerable descriptions speeding easily over a hundred klicks per hour in the direction of his second signal only some ten klicks away at its closest. The imaging software was having serious trouble keeping up with any kind of a resolution, but he was almost certain that the shapes he could see on some of the vehicles were vorcha. The shapes of the guns, rocket launchers, and turrets he didn't need to guess at. Instructing the VI to keep exact location info for the vorcha force, he feverishly scanned the ground in the direction they were advancing… until, at about fourteen klicks from where the vehicles had been, there was a clearly visible shape of a cargo freighter—a large one, probably somewhere around a hundred meters long and twenty or so wide. Old manufacture, but clearly asari. Damaged beyond repair, almost certainly, though it did seem that the crash landing hadn't been entirely uncontrolled probably thanks to the atmospheric wings he saw stripped into pieces along the tear in the ground where the ship must have impacted.

As he brought the view closer, he saw that not all of the debris was just haphazardly strewn. Some of it was organized into what looked like a wall that was at least a meter high judging by the shadow it cast. With an offhand flick, he set another VI to run a topological simulation of the ground to get a clearer picture in case he needed it. Along the entire perimeter of the low fortification there were bodies, and not a few destroyed vehicles. Mostly vorcha, from what he could tell from this distance, but possibly some husks too, although the kind of which he'd never seen before. The grass was burned off all the way about half a klick from the wall, probably by the defenders to have a clear killzone—even if it exposed them more. The asari had clearly remained here for some time, though why, Feron couldn't begin to—

Movement at the base of the ship. Just as he'd begun to hope that the wreck site might have been abandoned, he saw a pair of shapes walk out and toward the wall. Clearly asari, and clearly armed, but they were moving very casually. _Don't they realize that… No, of course they don't,_ he thought with a sudden flash of despair. If they had equipment capable of monitoring the area from that far away, they weren't using it… The vorcha were about nine klicks off. A few minutes at most. He swore, invoking Arashu out of habit but then finding strength in Amonkira instead.

He knew he shouldn't risk exposure, not like this, but his fingers were moving on their own, inputting the order for a microwave tightbeam broadcast directly at the ship. Fervently wishing that the parameters were loose enough that he wouldn't outright fry any equipment below, he tried hailing the ship. {Unidentified asari freighter, this is private yacht _Varokhas_, please respond.

{Asari freighter, respond!} he tried again after a few seconds of utter silence on all frequencies his comms equipment could reasonably monitor. {Asari freighter, this is _Varokhas_. You have at least thirty vorcha land vehicles rapidly approaching your location. Heading… they're coming from some thirty degrees right viewed from your aft. Seven klicks! Transmitting coordinate data. _Do you read?_}

The silence was dreadful for the seconds before out of the corner of his eye he saw movement in the visualization. The two asari had parted, one running back toward the ship and the other in the direction of the wall—where he saw two other shapes emerge from what must have been a small hole in the ground. Even as the three were bringing up some type of a mobile cannon, he saw a few others burst out of the tall grass and into the burnt field—forward scouts desperately running for what little protection the walls offered. He saw a few flashes of electronic communications in the overlay on the image in front of him although none that he could intercept, and more asari pouring out from the freighter. All were armed, and the scanners even identified some heavier weaponry being carried out… but it wasn't enough. Nowhere near enough. There must have been at most forty of the asari, barely one for each vehicle. Even commandos—and that's what they had to be, though he wasn't sure how they'd come to be on the freighter—wouldn't be able hold off for long despite what had clearly been a valiant fight against the previous attacks.

{Asari freighter, this is _Varokhas_,} he tried once more. {You _have_ to flee, there's too many! Do you read?}

Another desperate minute passed as he watched the relentless advance of the vorcha in the larger map. {Hello?} a soft, hesitant voice sounded on an unshielded broadcast frequency. {Is anyone there?}

{Freighter, this is _Varokhas_, I can hear you,} Feron yelped back, already knowing the relief he felt to be completely false. {You must run, now, do you understand?}

{We cannot run, _Varokhas_,} the woman or asari in the other end said, sounding terrified. {We have children and wounded aboard. The huntresses say they will catch all of us anyway if they cannot hold. We have locked the ship, and we have mined the compartment we are in if they break through,} she continued with resigned hopelessness. {Please, is there anything you can do to help?}

Feron squeezed his temples and forehead with shaking fingers, trying to convince himself against all evidence that the huntresses would be able to scare the vorcha off with a spirited defense, long enough to buy some time to call in reinforcements somehow. He could just send a rerouted message through QEC and hope the rescue forces wouldn't think it was a trap when they saw there were no working comm buoys left in the system, he could—

{_Please?_} the asari begged, the faintest hint of hope finding its way in her teary voice.

Cursing himself the entire fifteen seconds it took to bring the weapons system online, both for stupidly exposing himself and for caring about exposing himself if dozens of lives were at stake, he ran up to the cockpit and logged himself into the concealed tactical system. With a final prayer to Amonkira that the calculations were correct and he could keep firing until the vehicles were almost at the edge of the kill zone without endangering the asari with a projected impact radius and accuracy safety zone of about 250 meters, he targeted the largest cluster of enemies and pressed the trigger on the thanix. In the few seconds it took to reload, he watched through the cockpit viewport the almost incongruously small sway of the ship transform into a split-second of a relativistic, blinding streak of white-gold light before it in turn became an enormous, silent explosion that cast meters-long shadows behind the asari defenders struggling to stay upright as the earth shook underneath them in the small image of the wreck site even as the polite voice of the tactical VI informed him that six targets were immobilized and that it was adjusting the impact radius estimate by 12 meters to 147 meters for the next shot.

_There had damn well better be some thankful asari on the other side of this,_ he thought, pressing his lips together, transmitting his final coordinates over the QEC, and toggling on the atmospheric combat configuration as the craft plunged screamingly through the upper atmosphere, knowing that the vorcha wouldn't be scared off by a mere rain of hellfire.

* * *

**A/N: I'll try to write a couple extra chapters over the holidays, assuming you guys feel like you'll be able to read them. Might get the seventh and eighth Coherence out too, but not sure. The sixth is semi-important, may wait until a few more have gotten through it.**


	56. Chapter 55

_"Five seconds to atmospheric pressure wave impact. Delaying descent,"_ the tactical VI said just when Feron was preparing to fire a third shot from the thanix as the hull was starting to cool down from the rapid atmospheric entry, now only about twenty klicks above the surface and decelerating.

_What…?_ was as far as he got with the thought before the crisply defined field of grass or brush underneath turned into an impenetrable cloud of dust, expanding at a blinding speed into all directions from the craters his first two shots had carved into the dirt and rock of Heshtok. The asari in his other display were fortunately quicker than he was and before he managed to warn them, they had already thrown themselves into their dug holes in the few additional seconds they had from when they saw the clouds until the blast wave swept over the crash site and covered everything within a five-kilometer radius in a greenish-brown shroud.

It only took a moment for the VI to reacquire the targets it had lost, the red hexagonal markers popping up on the display… but most of them listed as neutralized, now, and the others moving slowly and uncertainly. They were still only a kilometer away and weren't showing signs of turning tail, however. As Feron restarted the slower descent toward the asari ship that he hoped he hadn't just vaporized with… whatever it was that had just happened, he instructed the VI to start cycling through the targets to obtain better status information, and turned on the enhanced vision equipment to see through the dust clouds. To his relief, thermal imaging showed shapes moving at the asari fort as soon as it activated. The resolution was much worse, but he'd gotten close enough that you could actually make out details. A few of the asari were moving around but most were still shuffling around the perimeter wall, probably trying to get into better positions for the incoming enemies.

{I'm pretty sure there's some Council rule against discharging your main gun into planets, _Varokhas_,} a cheerful if tired asari voice suddenly spoke on the broadcast channel, {but thanks!}

{My… uh, pleasure, hope anyone didn't get hurt?} Feron asked apprehensively, happy about the gratitude and the lightness of the scolding as he settled the craft to hover above the site at ten klicks up, slightly afraid to go further down into the dust. {And sorry, who is—}

{Huntress Arili, but friends and anyone with guns that big may call me Malla,} the asari introduced herself. {I run this outfit now… Looks like we're OK down here, couple people got tossed and we might have some broken bones.

{Can you still see the area?} she continued with a question after trailing off slightly. {It's nearly dark down here, with the dirt, not to mention it getting in my mouth, and my eyes, and in my crest…} she grumbled.

{I have a good visual on the entire area, more than adequate for a full tactical review,} Feron said, echoing the term the VI brought up. {Although if you're the one standing about halfway to the ship, you're facing away from me,} he added playfully before catching himself. The asari might not be in the mood for humor.

To his surprise, he saw that very shape turn and appear to wave. {This is me,} Malla said. {I'm surprised you can see anything through this, but I'm not complaining. Anyway, can you land or send a shuttle to pick us up, or even a ground team to help out or something? There's about 250 of us in total and we—}

{No, no,} Feron snapped before continuing more kindly. {You misunderstand, this really _is_ just a small yacht.}

{_…What?_} the asari blurted out in amazement. {I thought you were joking. How…?}

{No… I'm just well-equipped, let's say,} Feron said cautiously, unsure how specific he should and could get, and how much he could reveal without risking _further_ exposure. {I don't really have any way of getting you offworld,} he continued apologetically. {The best I can do is go send an alert for assistance,} he offered circumspectly, fairly sure that he didn't want to reveal the QEC even if it meant a longer delay for help to arrive. They were entirely too rare on civilian ships not to raise a lot of attention… though the thanix was probably quite enough for that all by itself.

{Well damn it,} Malla said dejectedly. {You're not on orbit then, either, are you? That's why I've got reach to you now. Damn it,} she repeated. {Can you see what the status is with the vorcha? I assume you were the one to warn us initially? Thanks for that, especially if it really was that many clans. We could never have held them,} she admitted bluntly.

{Yeah, let me check what their status is,} Feron said, happy to have a productive avenue of discussion. {They haven't been moving much so far. Do you know anything about these clans?}

{No, no,} the asari replied, barking a few orders in the middle. {Some of our rescuees are more familiar with them. They've been telling us that it's equally likely that the clans will just kill eachother, but that seems to have been wishful thinking.

Looks like they decided we're a better target, and would only have killed eachother to figure out who gets the spoils afterwards.}

Feron wasn't sure what to say to that, so he was quiet until the VI started yielding the data it had compiled. {Listen,} he said, {I think I can feed this data directly to you in some form if you can receive on standard asari or citadel protocols? I guess you have some comms left on the ship?}

{Yeah, it's not completely busted, we can run a link through there,} Malla said, and a few seconds later Feron got the specific keys to relay the small data feed through the freighter's comms—and from there presumably to the omnis of the huntresses. {Thanks, this looks fantastic,} she said a moment later. {The dust is starting to settle, I guess, but all of our monitoring equipment was in our shuttle, and it's all gone. This freighter doesn't have much in the way of combat sensors.

{Lessee who we need to worry about still… Normally I'd want to kill off anyone retreating to avoid the possibility of reinforcements, but those explosions were _preeetty_ noticeable so that'd be wasted effort,} she said wryly.

{Sure thing,} Feron replied with an embarrassed laugh before turning to confirm the data on the VI as the asari rattled off the current situation in the data that she saw. It seemed that there were only six targets remaining, the blast wave having disabled the other vehicles—although it was still quite possible and even likely that at least some of the vorcha had gotten through it without severe injuries. Even some of the vehicles might still come back online. Of the functional ones, two had decided it better to call it a day and were moving away from the site. Four were stationary or very cautiously moving toward the asari.

He breathed out in relief… this was manageable. {I have a fairly limited ability to support you guys from this level… there's a cannon of about the same caliber as your mobile one down there, but I've got nothing with longer reach.}

{Got nothing between the pea shooter and the planet destroyer, huh?} Malla asked with a tinkly laughter through her clear weariness.

{Nope,} Feron answered, a little amused despite himself. {And I'm not quite sure how the ship would handle that dust. Do you think you can take out the four active threats?}

{Yes,} the asari answered without hesitation. {I'm sending teams to take care of them and sweep the area… should be much easier if the dust settles and grass fields are as flattened as I think they're going to be,} she explained even as Feron saw six groups of four or five asari jump the wall and dart toward the coordinates the VI was marking as the vorcha.

{Soo… not that we're not thankful for your help and all, especially seeing as you're here before our fleet sisters, but… why _are_ you here?} the asari asked sharply, taking Feron by surprise.

He felt he was starting to run kind of low on excuses, and didn't think any of his normal guises would do. {I'm a merc… one of the better ones,} he said, trying to sound like a grizzled veteran. {I was sent to find somebody and it was likely she would be in this system.}

{…Who?} she asked suspiciously. {And _by_ whom?}

Feron weighed his options as long as he dared. {I'm trying to locate a huntress by the name of Linesse Alene, as a personal favor to her sister,} he answered, figuring that he'd already exposed himself so much that the best way out of this might be trying to recruit Malla into the fold rather than try to evade.

{Her sister? I don't know what game you're playing, man, but Liselle is _dead_!} the asari hissed back at him, infuriated. {Fucking broke Linn's heart. If Aria sent you, I swear by the Goddess that I will kill you myself—}

_Aria?_ {No, no! Her _half_-sister,} he corrected quickly, trying to keep his other foot out of his mouth while keeping track of the movements of the vorcha who had now turned into prey for the asari. At the same time, he was happy that in her burst of anger the asari had clearly revealed that she knew Linesse. {She and her father—_Linesse's_ father—sent me to locate her.}

Malla was quiet for a long while, long enough for Feron to start trying to figure out alternative plans…sounded like Linesse was probably alive, at least. Liara hadn't specifically tasked him to bring her _back_ after all—

{What's her father's name?} Malla asked finally.

{Aethyta.}

{Hrm,} the asari replied with a grudging note in her voice. {I'll let Linn be the judge of you… I sent her and her team to look for the Eclipse shuttle crash site with our only land vehicle, this rickety thing… Those dime-a-dozen mercs didn't have as much respect for the vorcha as you did,} she continued approvingly, {and they paid the price.

{I'm sorry if I'm a bit overprotective,} she added after a small pause. {Linn and her mother are… not on good terms, to put it mildly.}

{That's… that's okay, I wasn't aware of that,} Feron said quickly, noting one of the closer enemy targets blinking out of existence. _Did she just say what I think she said?_

* * *

{This is Zaranesc,} the turian female said, her voice melodic despite her clipped, hasty words. {Captain Reegar of the quarian Joint Assets, is it? I was told you had something urgent for me.}

{Yes, Lieutenant,} Kal replied, weighing his words carefully as he leaned onto the low railing with both hands. He'd gotten lost in his thoughts while waiting for C-Sec to get him to someone actually in charge, reflecting once again on the shortness and fragility of life… how much he wanted to see Tali'Zorah's face again. He had tried to convince himself that he could live this way, just holding her in his heart and never in his arms. This cursed rooftop had stripped away that thin, false veneer, leaving but his raw self. He gripped the railing tighter, trying to force himself to remember this moment so that he could find strength in it when his courage failed before speaking to her, again.

It almost looked tranquil around him for a moment if you ignored the columns of smoke rising in various places. A burst of gunfire somewhere down on the streets killed what remained of the impression. He sighed heavily and turned back toward the center of the roof where Inan'Amirai was kneeling down next to one of the bodies.

Kal sent her a tap signal to check one last time before passing the information on. The woman turned and nodded curtly before drawing the silvery sheet back over the dead turian. She stood up and walked a couple uncertain steps only to kneel back down into a disconsolate crouch, covering her faceplate with her arms.

{Well?}

Kal walked closer to the doctor, touching her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting manner before clearing his throat and turning his attention back to the comm line. {Yes…} he started, forcing himself to divulge what he'd learned. {We've found two of your officers, dead. I'm passing on their ID info along with the data we've gathered from the scene, including a preliminary from our doctor.}

{Fuck!} the turian spat out. {More of them? Spirits damn it. I've lost eight officers tonight. Ten, now. Yeah, we lost contact to these two about ninety minutes ago,} she added after a moment. {I—}

{That's not quite all,} Kal interrupted, knowing he'd just have to get it out without finessing it. {I don't know about the other cases, but there appears to be a… message being sent here.}

{What, that the gangs have lost all respect for and fear of authority, the only thing that kept us alive before?} Zaranesc replied bitterly.

{I'm not sure it's limited to that,} Kal said as he walked over to the antenna structure. He understood the woman's anger and resentment, but he had to try to prepare her, too. {We're… well, we're going around fixing the comms as much as we can, us a and a few other teams. We're actually at one of the backbone civilian aerial relays now, one that another group had already repaired a few hours ago. It went back down right around an hour and a half ago too.}

{Yes?} the turian prompted, impatiently.

{When we arrived, we saw that the relay had been intentionally broken,} Kal continued, trying to help the engineer keep his footing stable on the rigging at the same time. {Sabotaged. And your… your two officers were hanged from it. And gutted,} he added grimly.

The other end went dead silent. {_What?_}

{The two were beaten, sexually… assaulted, and then hanged on the relay structure with their stomachs cut open,} Kal said hoarsely, shaking with building fury as he recounted to the shocked C-Sec lieutenant how they had recorded the scene immediately and then taken the pair down out of respect.

{…Void take me,} the turian breathed out quietly. {_Get Bailey, now,_} she barked to someone else before continuing unsteadily. {Did you see… did… I'm sending investigators over right now, but do you have any idea what or who…?}

{Yes,} Kal replied, crouching down on one knee next to the bodies. {In fact, one of your officers managed to re—}

{What is it, Zar?} a male voice interrupted. Bailey, presumably. Kal took a quick glance around the rooftop to make sure all his troops were still in position and ready for any trouble though he suspected they wouldn't be targeted.

{This is fucked up, boss,} the turian said hotly. {I've got a Captain Reegar from the quarian forces online, and they've found two of my missing officers murdered in some… in some sick warning, or a fucking ritual or something.}

{What?} the male said gruffly before falling silent as the lieutenant explained the situation. {Jesus… what the hell happened? Reegar, start talking,} he ordered.

{I don't know much more than what I sent over, Commander,} Kal replied, having pulled up information on the likely Bailey in question. {But as I was saying, whoever did this was professional enough to smash and fry your officers' omnis and comms equipment but it looks like one of them was brilliant enough to send a live hardware feed directly into this relay without routing it through his comms. The data was stored in the message buffers even though it couldn't be sent anywhere—}

{Goddamnit, it was Parysac, wasn't it, Zar? He's the only one who—}

{Yes, I'm afraid so, sir,} the turian replied in a tight voice. {And Zara Varela.}

{Christ. I liked that kid.} The man was quiet for a few seconds before recovering himself. {OK, double all patrols _now_. Everybody needs to be in a group of four or more in ten minutes.}

{Boss, were already spread—}

{You don't have to tell me,} Bailey said, shutting the turian up. He clearly was not going to reconsider his order, one that Kal considered quite prudent under the circumstances even though the woman was right, too. {I'm going to talk to the military again. …But let's see what Parysac managed to do. Reegar?}

{Ah, yes… with your permission, I'll only play the… latter parts,} Kal said. {It think your Parysac was already dead at this point,} he added with genuine respect for the man. He hadn't exaggerated when he said he thought it was brilliant… and sad. The man had surely known they were going to die. {This is just audio. If he tried to get video, there's nothing. His equipment may have gotten smashed, or maybe he only set it for audio,} he said as he fed the recording through his connection into the channel.

_"Fuck man, I dunno about this shit,"_ a male voice said in a hushed tone. A turian, possibly. _"The fucking distraction at least made some sense, but why we still…"_

_"Warning, man. They've gotta know not to fuck with us. This is_ our _ward now,"_ another voice, possibly a human, said a little louder. _"The boss wants to make examples of the pigs!"_

_"Yeah, can you believe these bitches think they can fucking keep us down?"_ a third voice agreed, this one female.

_"The boss wants nothing,"_ the first voice angrily interrupted the violent echoing of the sentiment by maybe three or four more people. It sounded like he was a little farther away now. _"It's that fucking crazy bitch, this is all her. What_ she _wants. All the boss wants is that asari pussy. She's fucking got a fucking spell on him or something, man. Hes gone crazy, too. Our world, he says, like this is fucking omega now? And its all her people around him now—"_ he continued until letting out a small yelp before it, too, was cut short and transformed into a scream of pain by a vicious cracking sound.

_"Shut the fuck up,"_ a new voice said, all cold, homicidal menace. _"If you've got a problem with how we do things now, you can take it up with me. And then I will break your fucking neck. Got it?"_

_"Ye…yes,"_ the first man said between sobs.

_"Good. Get him up,"_ the last speaker said, his voice receding and gaining an echo as he must have walked into the entry hallway. _"We gotta bounce. The cops will find them soon enough, and we got more things to do."_

{That's pretty much all of it,} Kal said as the recording ended. {The rest of the recording didn't seem to have much, but I admit I skipped most of it,} he recalled still feeling the vivid horror.

{Oh no,} Bailey said with quiet disbelief. {No, no, no…}

{Boss?}

* * *

**A/N: I meant to publish a different chapter today, and this one on Sunday, but… well, I ended up doing this instead. I know at least one of you will be happy that we pop back to Feron already.**


	57. Chapter 56

Hilla woke slowly, the slight, uncomfortable throb of her shoulder creeping into her consciousness just before the almost painful dryness of her mouth did. She opened her eyes to a pastel blue ceiling, blinking the piercing light away. A ring of gentle pressure around her head and under her back and arms with the exception of her shoulder led her to the realization that they'd done the rare thing of stabilizing her on her back instead of her side. She knew it was meant to make her less likely to strain her shoulder either by putting pressure on it or using it because her other arm couldn't reach something, but it made her feel terribly exposed lying like that. She reflexively tried to twist her hips to the side and draw her knees up under the sheet, at least, even if she couldn't completely lie in a more familiar position.

As she fought away the stupid fear of sleeping on her back, slowly through her medicated haze memories returned of the shuttle, of how they'd strapped the injured human into a vacuum stretcher and waited the long minutes until Lyssa set the craft down on the _Gray Dawn_, all the while comforting Ada Jean. Of rushing their patient out of the shuttle into the airlock that took forever to open before the doctors and nurses on the other side could run forward to take charge and to pull the stretcher away and into the depths of the ship, leaving the exhausted squad standing at the decon room doorway, Mii holding back the weakly struggling Ada Jean.

Hilla had turned to the human again then, too, wrapped her good arm around her and lead her toward the waiting area. Iri had supported her on the other side, and Rinn had incessantly pestered Hilla about her shoulder even as Tai's receding voice was reporting in to Command that they'd be out of commission unless absolutely needed, unless something critical happened.

That short walk through the brightly lit, friendly and comforting hallway to the waiting room had been an amazing combination of excitement for being near the human and guilt for feeling excitement at such a time, and a horrible nausea from the returning pain in her shoulder and just from the effort and motion of walking. Ada Jean had been a little calmer but still sniffling when they'd gotten to a row of seats in the nearly empty space. Hilla remembered all she could think of at the time was trying to console the woman the best she could, probably babbling complete nonsense as she did. She couldn't remember any details of what she might have said, and only hoped that what must have been terrible platitudes hadn't soured the woman to her. Then everything had started going fuzzy, black shadows dancing around her vision and an incredible fatigue coming over her. The last thing she remembered was Iri's understated "You don't look so good, Hilla…" and Rinn yelling for a doctor as her knees had buckled and she'd pretty much just collapsed onto the seat next to Ada Jean, painfully hitting her head on the wall as she'd tried to keep herself from falling on the floor.

…No. The last thing she remembered were Ada Jean's arms supporting her in turn, and a glimpse of her worried face before it too had blurred away leaving nothing but the smell of her hair.

Hilla squeezed her eyes shut, mortification washing over her in a tide only broken by a rustle and small clink at her side. She opened her eyes again to a sight that took her so completely by surprise that she forgot her embarrassment for a moment.

Ada Jean was leaning over her as much as her small frame allowed, hands gripping the railing, beautiful features radiating concern. Her hair was still flowing from the stirred air from her movement, a cascading waterfall of black silk spilling on her back and chest now that it was down and dry even if still tucked behind the mesmerizing ears.

Hilla felt a rush of euphoria flutter through her she knew had nothing to do with the medication coursing through her veins.

"How are you feeling?" the woman asked in unison with Iri, who had also stepped up to the bedside just next to her.

"You passed out," Iri continued with a grin, "so we saw our chance and let them take you to surgery to fix your shoulder. The doctors had to put some synthetic shit in there, but I guess they think it'll heal up good as it ever was. You're gonna _have to_ be off-duty for a while, though," her friend added with a conspiratorial smirk. "I know how you _hate_ that."

"Are you alright?" Ada Jean asked again when Hilla didn't manage to get a single word out. "The doctors said you'd probably be a little out of it and sleepy for a while."

Hilla wasn't even sure herself if it was the medication, or if she was just exploiting the freedom that the _perception_ of being 'out of it' gave her, but she found herself reaching up to the woman's face, brushing her unsteady fingers down her cheek and jawline. The warm, smooth softness was incredible but also more tangible, more real than any texture she'd ever touched. "I feel… I'm good," she said hoarsely, letting her hand drop back to her side even as a momentary faintness made her close her eyes briefly again.

"That's great," Ada Jean said with a smile, without having flinched or drawn away from her touch in the slightest. When Hilla reopened her eyes, the woman had reached for a small cup from the side table and brought its straw to Hilla's lips, letting her sip the welcome, cool water to assuage her mouth and throat. "There you go…"

"I… uh, will go tell the gang and the docs that you're up," Iri said from behind the woman, wearing a stupid grin she tried to suck in as she dashed out of the room, probably to avoid bursting into laughter at Hilla's pathetic transparency.

"How long have I been out? You've changed clothes…" Hilla asked when the door slid closed and her eyes returned to the woman. She remembered with perfect clarity every little detail about her when she'd crouched over her to tend to her shoulder in the shuttle.

"Oh," Ada Jean said, looking at herself self-consciously as she put the water cup away. "Not long. It's only been a few hours since we got here. Miranda… one of my friends, she brought me a change of clothes."

"That was very thoughtful of her."

"She's good like that. Definitely beats wearing that," the human said with a small grin breaking through the sadness that had threatened to overcome her features again as she gestured at Hilla.

Struggling to lift her head enough to see, Hilla confirmed that in addition to all the other indignity she was wearing a terribly ill-fitting pastel orange shrink-wrap hospital gown just as she'd feared. "Oh goddess, this is why I try to avoid getting shot," she swore, earning a soft laugh from the human as a reward.

"Thank you for saving us," Ada Jean said quietly, her expression turning serious again.

"I'd like to say I was only doing my job," Hilla said with a little trepidation, knowing it wasn't the time, "but I admit I'm glad it was us. How is… Jack doing?"

"We don't know yet… probably won't for a while still. I guess she'll make it, but…"

"She'll pull through, just you see," Hilla said, hoping dearly that she was right. The rescue had been a fucking tight one… hell, they'd almost gotten blown to pieces before even getting out of the shuttle. "I'm sorry that we couldn't—"

"It's not your fault," the woman cut her off reassuringly. "You did save us. You just worry about resting and getting better."

Hilla felt the claws of sleep, a tiredness that could not be natural… but she also knew she'd regret it if she said nothing because she might never see Ada Jean again. Still, she didn't quite dare, didn't want to embarrass herself or the woman, not without leaving an out for both of them… She affected increasing sleepiness, letting her eyes droop half open before finally closing. "You should go to her," she said with a slight slur, letting her breathing pick up as though she were falling asleep. "But I'd… like to see… you again," she said in what she hoped was a sleepy murmur. She lifted her arm just a little off the bed, pawing the air as though seeking out the woman.

The second before she felt Ada Jean's hand—so _warm_—close on hers felt an eternity. "I'll come back later," the woman said simply, inscrutably, but still sending a shiver through Hilla's body as she lay there quietly, eyes closed as though she'd fallen asleep. A few seconds passed before the woman gently lowered her hand back on the bed and let go, the cold air enveloping it again as Hilla listened to the light taps of her steps rounding the bed and stopping at the doorway for a moment before touching the panel to open it and exiting.

Then she let herself fall into the soft embrace of sleep.

* * *

"It's okay, mom. Everything's okay. I'm right here," Shepard said softly, voice catching as she kissed the top or her mother's head, all the while stroking her neck soothingly.

Liara could do nothing but watch with a happily aching heart as Hannah once again tried to draw her head up from Shepard's chest to nod amidst her sobs and pained smile only to bury her face again. Shepard was not doing much better herself, eyes either squeezed tightly shut or turned up into the ceiling. Smudgy, black tears painted her cheeks as she lay her head against her mother's.

Mother and daughter had just held each other ever since Hannah had arrived, Shepard the rock her mother could finally be weak against. Liara was glad to see and hear that her wracking sobs were finally slowly quieting into sniffles, the happiness maybe finally overcoming what must have been years of longing, loss, and terror all bursting out. She knew it had been incredibly hard on her lover, too, having shared those emotions, thoughts, and memories many times… but she also knew that Shepard had always felt that it had been much harder on Hannah. Shepard and Liara had, after all, barely had a moment to breathe in years, always in one terrible struggle or another, and had always had each other for support. While Hannah had not exactly been laying around, either, Liara too thought that she had certainly had much more of the awful time to be alone, especially with no-one to share her burden with.

A thought struck Liara as she stood there a discreet distance away. She was overjoyed to see the two together and so close… but it made her a little sad that they were still apart. _They_ did not seem to care, used to being alone even when together as all the humans were. But she recalled vividly, viscerally how she had desperately tried to Meld with her own mother in the end, all those years ago in that dank, cold laboratory. How Benezia had rejected her… for fear of infecting her with the indoctrination, Liara had only understood later. There was little that Liara regretted more than not having been able to share those final moments… but the painful thought and the sight of Shepard and Hannah had given her an idea.

It was a gift that she thought she might be able to give… but she needed much practice before she felt she could succeed in it. And Shepard needed to be healed and happy. Then they could try. It would not be quite the same as just mother and daughter, but…

Something her father had said had given her the confidence to even think about it. Aethyta had, completely unexpectedly, complimented her on her prowess at calming Shepard when they had been on the shuttle flying over to the _Gray Dawn_. She'd said that Liara clearly had her mother's ability to navigate the mind. Even Liara's protestations over always becoming so very ill she ignored… According to her, this meld sickness had nothing to do with ability, that it was different from that which novices experienced in the first times they tried. _"Takes a fucking champ to get into that stubborn skull to begin with,"_ Aethyta had said pointing at the smirking Shepard, _"let alone manage what you just did."_ Liara was not quite _convinced_ by her father's assessment, but… well, perhaps she would be able to, if she practiced very hard—

"Liara," someone said.

It took her a moment to realize it was Hannah's torn voice, and that she herself had come to face away from the two at some point as she was wont to do when contemplating sometimes. She turned back and to her joy found that Hannah seemed to have recovered into a broad, beaming smile even through her puffy, reddened face and still-wet eyes. She still had not been quite able to let go of her daughter, holding on to Shepard with one arm, the side of her head now resting on Shepard's chest… and the other arm extended.

"Come here," Hannah finally said intently when Liara just stood there, unsure of what was desired of her.

Moving closer, Liara had not quite even made it to them when Hannah disentangled herself from Shepard and took a step closer to take Liara into her arms, hugging her tight around her shoulders. With a smile of her own, Liara let the woman pull her down a little. She squeezed back tightly when Hannah whispered a hot _"thank you"_ in her ear.

"I mean it," Hannah said when she finally let go of Liara—only to cup her face with both hands. "You're the reason she's still here. We… humans, we have throughout history referred to spouses of children as sons and daughters, too," she added hoarsely. "I never understood why until now. I couldn't be any prouder of you two," she said, voice breaking again as she reached to pull Shepard into the embrace as well.

The joy Liara felt when she let her mind brush into her bondmate's… so profound. She simply let herself float on it.

Hannah managed to recompose herself once more, finally letting the two of them go. She touched her palms on both of their cheeks one more time before wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand while rummaging for what turned out to be a piece of cloth that she could dry her eyes with.

"Oh, god, look at me," Hannah said with an emphatic huff somewhere between a chuckle and crying. "…We will have all the time in the world to talk later, _älskling_," she added to a smiling nod from Shepard. "I'm sorry about my blubbering and my terrible manners… We're at a sick bed and I don't even know everyone here," she said apologetically—quite unnecessarily so, in Liara's opinion.

No-one else seemed to have minded either, all of their friends slowly converging back from the tactful space they had given the reunion when Shepard beckoned them closer to introduce her mother to each and every one.

* * *

Shepard had still not quite recovered from the joyous surprise when she sat heavily next to Liara. "You did this, didn't you?" she asked as the asari wrapped her arm around her shoulders, knowing the answer even before the playful smile lit up her lover's face.

"I thought you could use a _happy_ surprise for a change," Liara said quietly, resting her forehead on Shepard's temple, the gentle waves of her mind lightly enveloping her.

"Yeah," Shepard said with a grin as she watched Wrex explain something to her laughing mother—or _"Ha! A mini-Shepard!"_ as the krogan had put it—with grand and suspiciously obscene gestures. For all her joy, she was glad her friends had swept her mother for the moment… she wasn't quite sure she could have handled the emotions without an intermission. "Thank you," she said, tilting Liara's chin up with her fingers and leaning down to kiss her.

Words were not sufficient to convey to Liara how grateful Shepard was of her, of her… everything that she was. Thoughts were not enough. Fuck, the emotions themselves barely were. She _needed_ her lover, her _silla_. The urge to be with her, to _be them_, engulfed her in that moment, an almost physical pain of being apart inextricably intertwined with the more familiar loving yearning that burned in her as did the distinctly _very_ physical lust as she lost herself in the kiss and the light but rapidly deepening connection they shared. To be one, to love her in every way possible…

She wasn't sure if even Liara could have restrained herself, so strong were the responses of her body and her mind, but a voice interrupted them just before they both lost control.

"Shep— Oh," Miranda started before having to clear her throat quite meaningfully as Shepard and Liara quickly pulled apart, both struggling for breath. "Behave yourselves. The doctors are out," she said.

"Well?" Shepard asked, trying to shake off the lingering thoughts, emotions, and her arousal as she sprang up, scanning the waiting room for the docs.

"Since she's got no family, nor is she in the military," Miranda said apologetically, "they were insisting that I was the only one they could give information to, in addition to whoever the hell runs the medical department at Grissom. I… I don't think she'd be happy with me having her medical details," she continued with a small shake of her head, "so I… I think I managed to convince them that you're her legal guardian. Which is more or less correct, anyway."

"Fuck it, if they don't want to give info…" Shepard spat out. Her anger over this stupid obstacle was flaring, riding off her already excited state, she knew, trying to calm herself down. Bashing in walls wasn't going to do any good here. "If they try to start shit, I'll go over their fucking heads and—"

"Glad you remembered that for a change, _Spectre_," Miranda said dryly. "But I think we're OK. You can go and talk with Dr. Laksh and the others. I'm not sure if you can see Jack, yet, but maybe just take Kasumi or Vega with you. I don't think it's good to try to get everyone in at the same time."

"Vega?" Shepard asked, puzzled. "You're coming with me and Kaz," she declared, not even entertaining the possibility of Miranda arguing about it. "I don't know fuck about medical stuff, and if Jack's got a problem with that… well, she'll just have to live with it," she said hotly, turning around to squeeze Liara's hand before she marched in the direction of the lab coat congregation around a doorway in the corridor leading to the surgery reception area. "I hope," she added quietly.

Kasumi was already there with the doctors, arguing about being allowed in when Shepard and Miranda arrived. Surprisingly enough they'd also passed Vega pacing like a tiger along the wall.

"Talk to me," Shepard said in her command voice even before the foremost of the doctors, a young man, had managed to introduce himself. They didn't have _that look_, at least, lifting the shroud of worry slightly.

Wisely—or because of Miranda's deft work—the man didn't argue, only gestured her to follow. "Two of you can come," he said over his shoulder as he entered what looked like an observation room.

"Good," Shepard said as she followed the man in. "Two of us and the doctor," she added, pulling Kasumi with her by the shoulder.

The man opened his mouth as if to protest, but evidently thought better of it as they all filed in.

Jack's shoulders and head were visible as she lay behind a glass barrier looking fine and peaceful but for a few scratches on her face. The rest of her was inside a large, white, rectangular device. The doctors—six, all told—gathered around Shepard and Kasumi, while Miranda walked over to the HI stationed at the foot of the bed, dodging two nurses as she went.

"So?" Shepard asked as she wrapped her arm around the perceptibly shaking Kasumi. The poor girl was taking it really hard, Liara hadn't exaggerated. She'd have to talk with the thief once they got out of here… Her patience was running very thin, but she forced herself calm. It would hardly do to project her ire on the doctors for the trouble they might have given, but hadn't.

"First and foremost, she'll live," the young man—identified as the aforementioned Dr. Laksh by his badge—started. "Secondly, there's no head trauma. Her brain functions perfectly normally. Thirdly, her spine will be fine. There is some damage to it, but we're confident that it will heal quite well. I don't expect any problems with mobility once she's rehabilitated. Fourth, she was suffering from a biotic shock and then shock from the loss of blood, but the first aid and arterial bypass by the asari stabilized her well enough that they were but a footnote."

"OK. I hear a but," Shepard said through her intense relief, sparing a glance at Miranda who was nodding her confirmation.

"Yes, there's a… significant _but_," Laksh said, gesturing toward a projection of some imagery. "She was shot with an extremely high-caliber weapon. The one good thing about it was that it went straight through without much damage to anything that wasn't in its path. The bad thing is that it pretty much destroyed everything that _was_ in its path. Her intestines are gone. She's missing so much of it that we're likely going to have to replace the whole thing with grown tissue and synthetic components. Right now she's hooked into this machine that takes care of all that and of feeding blood into her lower body until we can get in to fix it.

"Along with that, she suffered so much damage to her bladder, ovaries, and uterus, that we've removed them. Dr. Matsuo will assemble a team to see what can be done there. Finally, the exiting projectile severed the two middle fingers of her right hand. Dr. Ji is confident that their loss can mostly be mitigated with some cybernetic supports."

* * *

**A/N: I haven't bothered mentioning the previous few, but I recommend reading chapters 8 and 9 of Coherence. They're not particularly interesting or good or necessary, I guess, just somewhat relevant.**


	58. Chapter 57

Uska was at the top of the stairs, sitting on the cold surface of the second-to-last step with the pistol wedged between the step and the handrail, tightly but not so tightly that she couldn't get it out if she needed to. She looked at the hatch above her, the wood boards that daddy had gotten for the office room. They were real wood, she knew, not synthetic. You had to take care of them a lot more so she wasn't sure it was better than synthetic because they looked almost the same. Daddy had said that you knew, and that you could even smell the difference, but Uska didn't think she could smell anything except the oil that daddy put on them sometimes because that's what you had to do to keep the floor nice.

She looked at the hatch again. The seams were made so carefully that you couldn't see anything through them when it was closed, and besides the rug and the table were probably on top of it anyway. She'd heard mommy move them when she left because she had been right here at the top of the stairs listening.

Uska knew she wasn't as strong as mommy was but she was almost sure she could open it even if they were on top of it because the hinges were made so that they pushed upwards when you undid the latches and so they would help her push it open. She didn't think there would be anything else there because when she was still little she'd been pretty scared of Quakes and mommy had said that she had Designed the house so that even if there was a very big Quake they could go into the Quake Shelter which was the basement and they would be safe there and even if the entire house would break down but that would never happen, they could just sit safely in the basement and come back out when it was over. So mommy must have made it so that the house wouldn't break down on top of the hatch because then you couldn't get out when it was over, which was a very good idea. All the explosions could have been as strong as a very big Quake so she wasn't sure if the house was still okay, but she'd see soon.

She hoped it was okay, it was a good house. She missed her own room, too, and her stuff, and her bed. She didn't mind that she had to sleep in the same bed as her sister down here but her bed was much nicer.

Even if it was just the rug and the table, she could still need to use all her might to open the hatch so she had left her sister in the bedroom. She still didn't have as much time as she wanted though, because the baby was the most quiet and sleepy just after she ate and they were all out of powder. Uska wasn't sure if mommy could make the baby sleep, but she knew she couldn't so she had made the last bottle and given her sister half of it because then she would be quiet while Uska opened the hatch. Uska wasn't completely sure it was safe outside even though she had listened at the hatch a couple times and not heard anything, but They could still be there. Maybe They were just sleeping for example, then they would be quiet. Then if the baby woke later before they got out, or when they were outside, Uska could give her the rest of the bottle and she would be quiet or maybe even sleep until Uska found some more food to give her.

Uska held her breath and listened once more, careful to not move at all even though her wrists hurt a little bit because she had to push herself up and forward in a bad position. She couldn't hear anything, it was Dead Silent. She bit her lip as she lowered herself back down on the third highest step, and then she pulled the lock latches open on both sides. There was a small creak and then a hiss and her ears popped but the hatch didn't open hardly at all. She couldn't even see any light through the seams but she smelled smoke and something sweet. She froze in place again like a thief, but she still didn't hear anything. She touched the hatch but it was cool, and when she put her hand against the seam she felt just a little cool air. When she pulled her hand back, it smelled like smoke.

She sat herself back on the step and tried to think if it was safe. It didn't seem like there was a fire outside but she wasn't sure and she knew it was stupid not to be careful. At least if there was a fire maybe They would also stay away and not come near it so it could even be safer, but she had to prepare. She bit her lip and wrinkled her nose as she thought, but stopped right away when she noticed she was doing it… daddy always teased her when she did it, and said Uska was her Little Philosopher, but she liked that. Sometimes Erda teased her about it too but that she didn't like. Erda never wrinkled her nose. She looked like a Real Matriarch when she was thinking and not some stupid kid with a wrinkled nose. Uska wondered if Erda was hiding in a basement too.

She knew there was nothing for it except the breathing masks, and pushed herself off the step and quietly walked down the stairs to the Emergency Cabinet. It was already open because she'd taken out some blankets from there, so she reached up high and pulled down two of the masks. She set one on the bottom step of the stairs so she wouldn't forget to take it for her sister because she couldn't very well carry it with her now. Suddenly realizing she had left the pistol at the top of the stairs she looked quickly that the mask had instructions on it and then turned around and quickly padded up the stair as fast and quiet as she could, almost sure that They couldn't come until she got back up to the pistol, and They didn't. She left the pistol in its place still because it was near so she could take it if she needed it. She listened again while she looked at the Instruction Pictures. Daddy had shown how to use the mask when she'd bought the stuff for the cabinet, but Uska didn't really remember it very well.

It looked pretty simple, you just put the top of the cup on your nose and pressed a little so it went tight. And then you put a strap around the back of your neck and then another strap that went between the fringes over the back of the head. In the vids they sometimes had prettier and fancier ones where there wasn't a strap at all but instead there was like an armor piece that you put on your _meies_ and _ameien_ and then the mask part locked into them. Those were pretty cool, but this was just a simple one. At least it didn't pinch or rub when she finally got it on properly. She hated her clumsy fingers, it took her three tries to get the stupid neck strap hooked on the other side because she couldn't see anything. She took a few breaths to see if it worked. It did have a little blue light right there on the top of her nose, and she couldn't smell the smoke anymore so it probably did work.

She had secretly hoped that the hatch would have opened while she was downstairs, but it hadn't. She looked very carefully, but she couldn't see that it had changed at all. She glanced down at the pistol quick, and then she pushed on the hatch a little. It didn't move at all. She put both her hands against it but realized she didn't really have a good position so she put her knee down on the top step and her foot on the next one down and then she pushed up as hard as she could. The hatch still didn't move, not one bit. In the vids they sometimes shot at doors that wouldn't open, but she was pretty sure it wouldn't help at all and it seemed Dangerous too. Then she remembered that your legs were much stronger than your arms even though she was pretty good at gymnastics and climbing and stuff. She got up on the top step in a crouch and she rose up a little so that her back was against the hatch even though it hurt a bit when her fringes got shmooshed against it. She put her hands on the sides of the small hole in the roof that the hatch was in and then she tried to push up with her legs as hard as she could, so hard that she bit into her lip. It only moved up barely a centimeter.

She slumped on the step and wiped her tears away furiously, trying very hard not to let her sniffles out even though they hurt her chest because they might wake the baby or They could hear. Why did she have to be so weak? She had to get the hatch open… they couldn't stay down here any longer. She didn't want to think about it, but she was getting really scared that maybe nobody could find them if They couldn't either. She snorted quietly and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She _had to_ open it. Mommy had said that you were Never allowed to do it so close, but Uska knew she wasn't going to be strong enough by herself, and maybe the mask would help a little bit. She wiped her eye and nose one last time, and patted away the blood from her lip, and got up with her back against the hatch again. This time she didn't push with her hands because she needed them. She concentrated very hard, gathering power just like mommy had taught her. Then at the same time as she pushed up with her legs with a grunt, she thrust her hands upwards, directing her biotic force at the hatch just in front of her head.

It felt just like when she'd run straight into the tree last summer, a really hot pain in her nose and it went all white in her eyes and the tears came out again. She tore away the mask without thinking because her nose was completely stuffed and she couldn't breathe. She fell on her knees on the step until through her cough and snorts the blood spilled out onto the step and on her hands because she was trying to rub the pain away from her face. When she finally could see proper again and her cough wasn't as bad anymore, she suddenly noticed she felt very, very cold.

One sleeve still raised up to her face to try to stop the bleeding in her nose, she turned her head upwards and saw the stars. But this was the office room! The basement was right between mommy's big drawing table and the drawers with all the important stuff from doctors and so on. She quickly slammed the switch to turn the emergency lights in the basement off because it was dark outside and very cautiously got up on her knees to peek through the hatch, holding her breath and trying to make no sound at all. She couldn't hear anything at all anywhere around her, not the neighbors, no shuttles, not the highway, not even any animals or the wind even though she felt it. She saw nothing moving, no light. She still smelled the smoke very strong but there wasn't a fire anywhere.

She was pretty sure nobody had noticed her even though she must have made a terrible ruckus. Even the baby was still quiet downstairs. She pulled the pistol out of its keeping place and made sure that it was turned on and that the safety light was on. Then she pushed the button for the Night Mode because the lights were really bright in the dark otherwise and she knew where she had to put her finger to make the safety go off if she needed to. With one final look and listen downstairs and around the hatch, she stood up carefully and lifted one knee on the floor and steadied herself with her hands as she got the other one up too. The house had disappeared almost completely from around her. There wasn't almost anything left of her home except some broken walls that she could see now that her eyes were a little better in the dark. Here and there under rubbles she saw things she thought she recognized. The surface of mommy's big table, the top of a bookcase, one side of her sister's crib with the silly toy still on it… she lifted her free hand off the floor and wiped her eyes with her ash-smudged sleeve. She didn't have time to be sad about her home right now, she decided with a frown. Slowly she crawled toward the front of the house on all fours even though she scraped her knees and palms on all kinds of sharp things on the floor but it was better than walking up and be seen because you were stupid. She stopped at the crib to grab the soft toy even though it had lost two of its tentacles when she looked at it and stuffed it under her shirt. Her sister probably wouldn't notice it was missing the two and she had always liked hugging and squeezing the thing so maybe it would make her feel better anyway.

Uska saw the big hole, which was a crater, even before she got to where their front door had been. There wasn't enough light to see many details, but it was very big. More than four big shuttles could have fit inside of it, easy. She hoped very hard that Erda hadn't been hiding in her basement if they had one because the hole was right near where her house had been. All the other houses of the neighbors were all completely flattened like Uska's home was. She didn't know if anyone was still hiding in their homes but she knew she wasn't strong enough to help because she didn't think she could make such a big biotic push again until she had gotten to eat something, but she could tell other people that They weren't here and that they should come to look for her neighbors in here. She turned back toward the back yard, her tummy growling and aching now that she had thought about food again.

She let out a little whimper when she got to where the back yard had started, not because of how much her knees and hands hurt but because she was suddenly scared that maybe there _wasn't_ anybody else. Their house had been on a little hill that looked over the entire city in the valley… but she couldn't see anything except the shapes of collapsed and broken buildings against the sky. It was pretty far away but even the lights that daddy had liked to look at so much in the evenings were all gone all the way to the sea. There had been a big forest that went all the way down the hillside to where the city started, but she couldn't make out any trees. Nothing moved.

Uska stood up slowly, just staring at the nothing. She didn't know what to do. She hadn't even thought that the city wouldn't be there, that _somebody_ wouldn't be there even if all her neighbors had left somewhere. She didn't know what to do. She sat down in the ash and she cried. She cried big, heaving sobs because everything was _gone_ until she couldn't breathe anymore.

Then her baby sister cried, too, a soft mewl from all the way down in the basement but still loud in her ears.

She got up and ran to the hatch and padded down the stairs, trying to clear her nose and wipe away her stupid tears on the way. She'd have to stop being so scared and sad when she got to her sister, she knew, because the baby would notice and it was enough that one of them was scared and sad, not both. The baby was crying very loudly when Uska got back to the bed but she calmed down a little bit when Uska took her into her lap and rocked her and tried to soothe her mind with small happy thoughts. The baby settled down to drink from her bottle quietly and happily when Uska reached for it and brought it to her sister's mouth.

They couldn't stay here and her sister was her responsibility. Her plan had been to go to the city if she couldn't find any of her neighbors, or maybe the school. There was a store that was not far away on the shuttle at least, but she didn't really remember how to get there especially not in the dark. So they had to go to the city. She _knew_ there were stores there that she could find food from and maybe there were even some people. Maybe they were sleeping because it was night and that's why she couldn't see anybody.

She didn't have much to take with her. She had already prepared the baby before she'd gone to open the hatch in case they had to leave quickly. She probably hadn't gotten it quite right but she had helped many times when mommy had made the sling where she carried the baby and the sling Uska had made was good enough even though it wasn't as good and it had taken her a few tries to get it the correct length because she was much smaller than mommy and she couldn't well walk with the baby at her knees. With her sister happily sucking on the bottle, Uska carefully lifted her and slid the sling straps around her shoulders and back, and stood up. The little one didn't seem to mind, so Uska wrapped the belt she had made for carrying the pistol around her waist and tucked the pistol into it. It wasn't a very good belt, but you could tie it again if you needed to and it was better than carrying the pistol or putting it in her bag. She put the stuffed toy in the bag along with the few items she thought might be good like her stupid omni because maybe she could find somewhere to charge it, and some blankets too. It wasn't really cold outside even though it had felt like it at first, so she didn't use one now but she could put one on her shoulders if it did get cold.

Her sister smiled and cooed when she finally finished what was left of her bottle and Uska put it in the bag that she tied and then swung on her back on top of the straps of the sling. Uska tried to smile back at her and brushed her cheek and pressed her nose like she liked.

She looked around the room one last time to make sure she hadn't forgotten to take something important, and then she walked up the stairs, carefully at first until she was sure that the baby was secure. She crawled out of the hatch, wiped her eyes and tried to put her fear away but still be very careful and watchful, and headed for the path that went down the hill toward the city.

* * *

**A/N: A note about the asari crest in the Codex.**

**Next chapter Saturday, I think, because there are probably even fewer readers who aren't out and about tomorrow.**


	59. Chapter 58

Shepard simply stood there, her body not quite sure whether she should be shocked or relieved. She was vaguely aware of Kasumi under her arm and of soothingly stroking her shoulder, of Kasumi's arms wrapping around her in turn and the woman's deep, happy gulps of breath.

_This is all my fault,_ Shepard thought as her eyes returned on Jack's silent form. _I could've avoided all this without my selfishness. Thank the goddess she'll live at least… The Goddess?_ she thought as she caught herself, almost amused. She barely even knew anything about Athame, let alone believed. …Though that was not entirely true. She did believe, in a way. It was just that whenever she thought of _The Goddess_, she thought of Liara. Her very own indefatigable, infinitely kind and loving, and fearsomely bad-ass goddess was who she relied on, she mused. Fortunately the much more level-headed Kasumi interrupted her self-pitying, self-indulgent, and completely inappropriate thoughts.

"How long?" the woman asked, slightly muffled. She sounded much better than she had, but Shepard couldn't quite see her face to see how she was looking, only the top of her head.

"How… how long for her to heal?" Dr. Laksh asked uncertainly. "Hard to say. I can't imagine it will be anything less than two weeks before we can even consider closing her up," he ventured, taking a glance at the others for confirmation, "and that depends entirely on how she responds to and recovers from the surgeries. We'll have to let her body rest for a while before continuing now, as we will in the future. For now, her state will be monitored for the next day and if she's stable, we can move her to one of the human ships. Probably the _Ob_ or the _Danube_," he added.

"Are you sure it's wise to move her away from the asari?" Kasumi asked in response even as she finally let go of Shepard, puzzling the commander—and by the look of them everybody else too, apart from Miranda whose ears the statement had perked. She was looking over at the thief with a frown.

"What do you mean?" Laksh asked. "While I have no doubts about the asari's ability to take care of her in the least," he continued with a respectful nod toward the two asari doctors at his side, "it's better to have access to—"

"I think what Ada Jean means," Miranda said as she left the foot of the white cube and walked toward the group of doctors who all had turned to look at her, "is that the asari probably have much more experience with treating biotics with severe injuries."

"We do, but I cannot imagine that the humans don't have protocols to—" one of the asari doctors started, only to be cut off by Shepard's apologetic gesture.

"She's very powerful," Shepard clarified now that she was clued in, too. Just thinking about what might happen if Jack lashed out before she was healed and in as much control of her faculties as she ever was brought on a cold sweat. "You don't think much of human biotics, I'm sure, and you're mostly right. But she's different… I'd put her up against any of your matriarchs or justicars. _And_ she uses her powers unpredictably and usually violently," she added, going into a little detail about Jack's history—as briefly as she thought she could while stressing the importance of the matter. She also found herself wondering, for the first time, whether Samara and her daughters were alright.

"Hrm," the female doctor, Kalimoff, grunted with a concerned frown. "That could be a problem, you're right. Unconscious power flares aren't completely unheard of and from what you're saying, she herself is… similarly unpredictable?" she asked politely, receiving a confirming nod in return. "So if she doesn't handle emerging into consciousness gracefully, she could cause herself significant injury. Or others, god forbid. For human biotics it's usually sufficient to simply use sedatives, I believe, but…"

"I see what you mean. If she truly is that powerful…" the asari doctor agreed with slight hesitation. "I am no expert in this area, but I think I can round up some of my colleagues to discuss the matter. I know there are some experimental suppressive medications, but we'll have to look into whether that would work. And any alternatives to using them. As for waking, it is probably best if a friend is nearby. If the patient were an asari, I would suggest a Meld while she is coming back to consciousness to soothe her but judging by what I am hearing, that might do more harm than good. Especially if it is someone she doesn't know."

"Right," Shepard said. "We can try that, and I can assure you that I or someone will be there with her in any case, but…"

"I will see what we can come up with," the asari said with a curt nod, and turned over to her human colleagues. "I will arrange a meeting tomorrow if doctors Laksh or Kalimoff are able to make the time—or whoever else will be in charge of her treatment," she added. "It does sound like it may be best to keep her either in our care, or at the very least bring a few of our experts to consult on the possible human vessel."

"One or both of us will be there, just let us know when and where," Dr. Kalimoff said with a look at the nodding Laksh.

"Good. I don't think we need to meddle further. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you aren't all excellent at what you do," Miranda said with clear respect as she glanced down at her datapad before turning her eyes at each of the doctors in turn. "It's just that this one's a special case in more ways than one. So, if you have any questions or concerns…"

"Understood," Laksh said with a small smile. "Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Her files, medical and otherwise, are… incomplete."

"I imagine they are, at that," Miranda said with a smile of her own before turning her gaze toward Shepard. "These two are the ones who stitched you up too, if you didn't know."

_Where are_ my _manners?_, Shepard thought, disappointed in herself even if she hadn't heard the very well-hidden reprimand in Miranda's voice. One day she'd learn to control her temper… "Really? Wonderful to meet you… I'm sorry, I haven't had the time—" she started, cut off by dismissive gestures from the two doctors. "…And, ah, the rest of you, too. I apologize if I seemed rude, you've all clearly done a great job here—"

"No need to apologize," Dr. Laksh said and to Shepard's relief the others' faces seemed to reflect the same sentiment. "I'm sure this was quite a shock for something this violent to happen now," the young man continued. "If I may, I was floored by the news from the Citadel myself."

"Do you, uh, do you know anything about it?" one of the other doctors asked, the cybernetic surgeon perhaps. "About what's going on down there? All we've seen here is a flood of patients."

She didn't, Shepard realized with a start. The last few hours ever since the alarm had been such a nightmare that she had barely thought about the _cause_ of all this. Liara might know, she thought, if she had looked into it while Shepard slept… And just like that, her memory returned to the blissful sleep with her lover's gentle comfort surrounding her. How she had just been there, in this chaos, and felt so safe… She felt bad about almost forgetting about Jack for a while before she finally fell asleep, but she realized it must have been Liara trying to keep her calm and distressing thoughts from her mind. And then the wakeup into something better than she could have imagined. That moment where she had been five years old again, and her mothers smiling face had meant everything was right in the world. That had given her strength enough to be strong for her in turn. She couldn't even imagine what these past years must have been like for her mother despite her brave face throughout. Not once when they'd spoken had her mother been anything but an incredible support without wanting anything in turn. All those times that Shepard could have just stopped what she was doing and go to her. Her mission had always felt so important even though she knew her mother must have been suffering. She'd make it up now even if it took the rest of her life—

She suddenly became aware of the ten pairs of eyes staring at her, no idea how long she'd fallen silent for. "No, uh… no, I'm sorry," she said, thoroughly embarrassed both at her lapse and how out of everything she was. "I will find out now that we know she's somewhat alright, and I will make sure to tell you,"

"I… ah, thank you. You needn't concern yourself on my account," the doctor said, flustered. "I'm just doing my job—"

"So am I," Shepard replied with a small grin at the man, trying to salvage what she could with a little swagger.

"Well, regardless, its quite an honor to meet you, Commander," Dr. Laksh said, offering his hand. "But now I must insist that you leave your friend to heal for a while," he added with a furtive smile. "She's in good hands, and the staff will keep you appraised. We can let you back once she's either settled here or prepared for transport, whatever is decided tomorrow."

"I…" Shepard started as she reached to shake, all set to protest until they… what? With some effort she forced herself to think better of it. There was nothing she could do for her but let her heal… _Her_ part would come later. "You're right," she said instead, letting go of the man's hand. "I'll go brief the others and thank goodness she'll pull through… We can come back later—"

"No," Kasumi said with a vigorous shake of her head at Shepard before turning to the doctors. "There's one more visitor you have to allow before that."

The glint Shepard saw in the small woman's eye must have been equally clear to Dr. Laksh who, much like Shepard just before, seemed to struggle to suppress his urge to argue before acceding. "Very well, but just one. And not for long. We need to let the nurses and the attending doctors do their jobs."

Kasumi nodded at the man, evidently satisfied, and walked over to Jack's side without another word.

Shepard gave the assembled doctors a hasty, grateful smile and a nod, and walked the few steps to the glass wall, too. Peaceful was the only word she could come up with to describe her injured friend as she pressed her hand against the cool surface in a useless display of sentimentality. Well, she liked to think it wasn't altogether useless. "She'll be fine, you'll see," she said as much to herself as to Kasumi when they both turned toward the door where Miranda was already waiting, datapad clutched to her chest.

The thief, though still disconcertingly far from her usual indomitable cheerfulness, seemed a little better as they walked out. Shepard really would have to sit the woman down for a talk after she was done briefing the others, she knew. Maybe there was _something_ she could do to help Kasumi. She felt terribly out of her element, she realized, her usual confidence all but shattered. And so many things had changed in the brief time she hadn't been there for…

"So… Ada Jean, huh?" she asked as the three waited for the decon cycle to run through before emerging into the waiting room again, determined to shake off her own gloominess and perhaps that of her friend, too. It was _good_ news. It might be a rocky road ahead, but Jack was alive. "You trying to break the record for most aliases in one star system?"

Kasumi looked up at her, quiet for a moment before flashing a very welcome grin at Shepard and squeezing her around the waist.

* * *

Bakara had never been so glad to heard someone holler _druid_ as she was when she heard Agot yell it as he came to view at the top of the dune just at the edge of where the complex had lain. She allowed herself a small grin as the boy made his way down the side, half running and half tumbling. She hadn't known the child for long, but she hadn't been surprised at how strongly she'd feared for his safety during the attack, nor how great it was to see him well. With as few children as the krogan had, and as few as made it to any kind of an advanced age, you cared for every single child in your clan. It would probably going to be hard to lose that feeling after being conditioned to it for so long. _Or maybe you never did lose it,_ she thought. Maybe she'd always feel protective of nearly all children, even when they were no longer so rare? The thought stopped her in her tracks until this particular rarity crashed right into her leg.

"Sorry, druid," the boy barked as he tried to cough the sand out of his mouth while clambering up from the ground.

"It's alright, child," Bakara said, pulling him up by his flailing arms. "We were worried about you. You're not hurt, are you?" she asked, eyeing him over for wounds.

"No!" he declared proudly. "I hid just like you told me, and then I came to the coordinates you said."

"I see. You have done yourself credit," Bakara answered with a hidden smile. "Come, Raik Amak will want to see you, I'm sure," she said, nudging the boy along.

"Is Etrak back yet?" Agot asked as the two set in the direction Bakara had been going, toward the temporary camp they'd set up to wait for everyone to gather before making for a new stronghold.

"No, he hasn't come back," she answered, knowing well that the old warrior probably wouldn't be coming back at all. Either he had turned tail and run, or then he had actually tried to face down the enemy. In neither case did she think it was likely they'd ever see him again, not with the strength and skill the humans had displayed in addition to the immense firepower they'd brought. They had brought down the old structure in a matter of minutes… only Agot's warning had given them the time to evacuate the structure, and even then they had had to leave behind much of value that they would never get back now. The sand had swallowed the entire complex like it did everything else.

"We should go look for him!"

"He can handle himself, Agot," she said firmly. It was _possible_ he was injured somewhere, but either he'd heal up enough to be mobile again, or he was already a lost cause. They didn't have the time for such excess. "He'll either come back, or not."

It quieted the boy for a moment as the two marched in the lifting darkness. Bakara could already see the sentry, some young waif of the Raik, by the time he spoke again. "I apologize for questioning your judgment, druid," he said quietly, intoning the words very carefully.

Bakara looked down at him as they walked. The boy's face was serious, and set tightly forward, not looking up at her like she had expected. "You are forgiven, Raik Agot," she said with equal seriousness before allowing some warmth back in her voice. "Whether Etrak comes back or not, he will no longer be known as a deserter and a coward," she said, keeping private the thought that if he was alive and didn't come back, there was nothing that would save him. She couldn't imagine the grizzled male to have fled, though.

That brought a small smile to the boy's face. "He was a good warrior," he said before running off to greet the sentry.

Bakara acknowledge the younger female's greeting with a nod as she passed her. She paused briefly to turn to Agot. "Go find Raik Amak, child," she reminded Agot before continuing toward the quiet voices further ahead, now clearly visible in her omni tracker, as well.

"What's going on?" she asked as she got to the top of the small, rocky hill that they'd agreed upon as their gathering site. While she was glad to see so many of them had managed to escape, the two hundred or so of their group were all huddled close together in a circle around the center. The answers she got as she forced her way through toward the center were unintelligible. Even when she emerged into the small clearing in the center, not much was obvious but that the other elders had gathered there.

"Urdnot Bakara, good, we were waiting for you," Raik Amak said as she turned around to see the newcomer. "Have you seen Agot?"

"Yes, I brought him to the camp," Bakara said with a curt nod. "What's the meaning of this?"

"This, Urdnot Bakara," said the shape behind the Raik elder—Jorgal Nise, she saw now—as she turned to look up from her crouch, "is a prisoner," she finished dramatically as she pushed herself up, revealing an armored human splayed down on the ground. Or something that had once been a human, Bakara thought with a tingle of horror creeping up from somewhere deep in the most primitive parts of her mind. Their trap had been successful in that with Agot's warning they had managed to get out of the complex and disperse into the desert around it, and attack the humans from behind when they were engaged in trying to collapse the complex. Bakara had thought none of the humans had survived, though.

"She tried to kill herself, but the Jorgal waifs managed to stop her," Amak said with an approving nod toward a group of young females. "Do you know anything about this? I've seen humans before, and… I don't know what in the name of the great seas this is. It won't talk to us," she added, her visceral disgust clearly visible as well.

They'd only gotten the human's helmet off, but it had been enough to staunch desire to reveal any more. From the shape of the armor—emblazoned with a stripped-off Cerberus logo—Bakara guessed that it was a female. The facial structure was somewhat recognizable as one, too, and the remnants of once-long hair, tufts sticking out where skin remained. Her scalp, just as most of her face, was covered in a horrifying array of cybernetics fused right into the skin. Some parts were illuminated with blue and white, others remained a nasty, oily black and gray. Her eyes were luminescent orbs of the white-blue.

"Who are you?" Bakara barked at the woman on the ground. She glared back without a word. "What does Cerberus want with the krogan? Are you here to destroy us? You'd work with the salarians to destroy us?" Bakara tried, already knowing the attempt—

"Cerberus? Cerberus?" the woman-thing spat out with a hollow laugh that echoed through the cold dawn. "They were weak. Primitive. There is no Cerberus.

"We are the Ascended."


	60. Chapter 59

Shepard turned away from watching Kasumi walking back through the decon doorway with Vega in tow, and raised a questioning eyebrow at Miranda. She still hadn't quite figured this thing out.

Miranda gave a small shrug. "It's exactly what it looks like," she said simply, and started toward the waiting room again after having stopped to wait for Shepard.

Shepard spared another look at the now-closing door before following the woman. Questions about the exact details played on her lips but she decided to let them wait… and maybe Miranda wasn't the best person to ask, anyway. She could talk to Vega herself, instead. And Kasumi. And… There weren't enough hours in the day, but when had there ever been? She tried to settle herself, to once again convince herself that she finally _did_ have more time. For the first time in years, not everything needed to be resolved right now… and she knew she had to try to take it easier herself as much as it galled her. Not only was Liara right—she deserved to have Shepard to herself—but where before Shepard had had to neglect the asari because of _the mission_… even though there was so much to do now, she _knew_ that she would be a liability to whatever mission she undertook until she was healed.

Even though she knew that barely a fifth of all military combat personnel managed to get through their service without suffering at least one of the various mental… conditions, and even though the Alliance was very forthright and proactive about treatment, and even though everyone had seemed very understanding of it, she was still deeply embarrassed about her loss of faculties. But never embarrassed enough to pretend it hadn't happened and endanger lives because of it. She'd seen those assholes, plenty of them. Good officers knew to pick them out of duty… worse ones didn't, and they paid the price. It might not be that long, anyway. Miranda and Liara had seemed very certain that they would be able to get it under control, but she wasn't quite sure it hadn't just been for her benefit—

Her thought was cut off when she rounded the corner back into the waiting room just at Miranda's heels, and almost into the group that had gradually shuffled forward toward the front of the space. Liara's anxious look at Miranda—which always twisted something inside Shepard, caused the immediate desire to fix whatever bothered her lover—softened into relief the moment the asari turned her eyes to Shepard.

It gave her undefinable joy to know that Liara could read her so very easily, Shepard reflected as she came to a halt next to Miranda—and she did not miss Garrus taking a quick sideways glance at the asari instead of trying to scrutinize Shepard's expression himself. As she stood there, her earlier uncertainty was replaced with… pride. Pride when she looked at the assembled people, her little family, friends old and new. And as always, seeing them her mind went to those who couldn't be there, all those lost… but Jack wasn't one of them, she told herself, catching herself before alarming anyone with tears. _Christ, can't seem to stop crying… but is that really so bad?_

She wasn't quite sure how much she should tell the others. Even though their presence here was a testament to how far the biotic had come, Shepard felt it was Jack's place and hers alone to share any further information… "She'll be okay," she said simply. "It won't be an easy recovery but… well, it's Jack," she added with a half-hearted grin. "Ka… ah, Ada Jean and Vega are in there now, but the docs said nobody else till tomorrow at the earliest, if you guys want to see her. They're probably going to keep her under for a while still anyway, so she won't be much company… I forgot to ask."

"Yes," Miranda said with a small nod when Shepard shot her a questioning glance amidst the expressions of joy. "She'll probably be sedated at least until they get her off the machines."

"Thank the Goddess," Liara said with a heavy breath. "I will let Tali and Karin know. Oh, and Dr. Sanders, yes…" she muttered to herself as she turned around and wandered toward a quieter corner of the waiting room.

Shepard looked after her with a small smile, the asari staving off her boiling anger for a few moments. …But only a few. "Alright. Tell me somebody knows what the fuck is actually going on? Whoever did this is going _down_, all the way into the ground," she said, barely managing to keep the growl out of her voice as she looked at everyone in turn. "Garrus? Mom? Sorry, mom, this is… we've got to deal with this."

"Oh, I understand, sweetheart…" her mother said with a smile that told Shepard that she did. "I've not been briefed on this, though, and all I'm getting through the fleet channels is that nobody's quite sure what's going on other than that it's not posing an immediate risk to the fleets," she continued, crossing her arms lightly. "Bajic's been offline, probably resting, and she's really the only one I think I might get information out of. But I'll see what I can find out."

"Should we maybe go somewhere a little more private if we're going to talk… business?" Steve asked with a glance around the waiting space before Garrus could answer.

Wrex was undeterred by any audience. "I dunno about the Citadel. I've got my own problems that need solving, Shepard," the old krogan grumbled—almost apologetically. Close enough to it, anyway.

"I know, Wrex…" Shepard started, now also keenly aware of the number of eyes watching their group. _Getting a little too used to my celebrity_, she mused admonishingly. She of course constantly scanned the room for threats purely instinctively but beyond that, staring bystanders were entirely too commonplace to warrant any attention. "I know and I want to help, but unless you've got something new, Tuchanka's got to wait until after this," she said even as she craned her neck to see if she could spot any empty rooms they could commandeer.

"Whatever," the krogan replied, but fortunately not horribly upset if she read him right. Grunt didn't seem particularly agitated, either… not that the kid particularly cared about Tuchanka, anyway, but he'd definitely be able to tell if Wrex was getting in a bad way. She very much did want to help however she could, but Liara and Miranda had been right. There was simply nothing that could be done yet.

"There's an empty cafeteria at the end of the hallway," Aethyta supplied, poking her finger in the direction of the elevators. "They've got it closed for who knows why, probably just to piss people off. Had to go five decks down," she added in an irritated grumble.

"Fine, let's go there," Shepard said, catching Liara's eye and showing where they were heading for when she was done spreading the good news. Liara just nodded with a small smile, her fingers flying across her omni. _"Will wait for Kasumi and James here,"_ the message in Shepard's comm read moments later. Shepard nodded, trying to return the smile as she turned to stride into the hallway.

It wasn't much of a cafeteria, she noted as they arrived. More like a staff mess. But it fit all of them with space to spare, and it would do. "So? All I've got is that one of the gangs was doing who knows what and Jack got caught in the crossfire" she asked, leaning back against a table but not quite sitting on it, and arms lightly crossed until she realized she was mirroring her mother's posture exactly. With a tiny, withheld grimace she unfolded her arms and laid her hands on the table surface instead.

"Don't know either," Garrus said even as he seemed to be checking his comms. "I've no idea about the Keepers, but Liara might, she was catching up with the news feeds while you slept, I think. All I know is that they're apparently causing absolutely no trouble whatsoever, but the Ward—Tayseri," he corrected himself quickly, "is in pretty bad shape. Kithoi's apparently more or less calmed down now."

"And the others?" Shepard asked, not in the least calmed by the lack of information.

"The oth—"

"The other Wards have been abandoned," Miranda said, interrupting Garrus' confused question. "All the survivors were relocated to Tayseri and Kithoi."

"I see," Shepard said quietly. The destruction on the Wards must have been worse than she had imagined.

"…Right. So Tayseri's still a problem. The Primarch has allocated some teams there and the asari and humans have special forces down there, but as far as I understand, it's only to secure key sites quietly, but there's something else going on down there. I guess the rioting's mostly died down, but there's something more organized. The comms are still mostly down, but they've brought some relay ships above to help with the routing. But I guess the new Executor and the brass are still trying to pretend that everything's okay down there—"

"Don't you have any C-Sec contacts you can talk to?" Shepard interrupted, reminded as she was by the mention of the Executor. "Wait, actually, is Bailey still around? He'd probably know. Or Kolyat—"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay," Shepard said, holding her index finger up while she turned to her comms. "Wonder if this still works," she muttered mostly to herself when she selected the C-Sec commander's contact information and initiated the connection request. She left it pending for almost a minute, but the man didn't answer. Just as she was about to give up hope—though at least the connection went _somewhere_—the connection cut off and she received a hastily typed _"cl u back 2 min"_ in return. "'Kay. He says he'll get back to me shortly—" she started, looking back up at Garrus and the others when Liara lit up the room by stepping through the doorway with the much less-forlorn Kaz and Vega in tow.

"I am sorry, I did not mean to interrupt you," the asari said with a frown as she walked over to Shepard's side.

"No, no, you didn't—" Shepard started explaining with a shake of her head, but ended up just smiling at her lover like an idiot.

Fortunately the asari seemed to get the gist, flashing a quick smile back at her before turning to the room at large. "So, what is all this?"

"We're trying to piece together what's going on on the Citadel," Garrus said from his perch on top of one of the tables directly across, throwing a quick nod at Kasumi and Vega who had parked themselves next to Steve and the krogan. "Have you found out anything? Or do you know anything about the keepers?"

"No… I am afraid I have little new information on the situation on the Citadel," Liara responded, brow furrowing again. "Most that comes out through the public feeds is not good information. I was going to suggest that we would contact Kolyat. He might have some inside information."

"I got a hold of Bailey," Shepard said, head hanging but for a small glance over at Liara to acknowledge the wisdom in her thinking. "He'll hopefully get back to me soon."

The asari just nodded thoughtfully. "The Keepers… it is very hard to say," she said in the melodic way she often did when she was thinking something through. "They have not attacked anyone since the initial… or, let me rephrase myself, it seems they have not attacked anyone _at all_. It seems that many of them hid after the terrible misunderstanding, but some either remained or have emerged. Nobody has been able to communicate with them, however, and I am sure that they have tried many ways with all the scientists—"

"Do you— Sorry, Liara," Garrus interrupted the asari, who gave him a nod to continue, "Shepard, you remember the guy who was studying the Keepers? The salarian."

"Ah, yeah, I do," Shepard said, the memory of the salarian's face surfacing crisp as if it had been yesterday. "Corbin, something like that?"

"Yeah," Garrus said with an enthusiastic nod. "Didn't he get some good info out of those things?"

"Well, yeah, but I don't think he was able to _speak_ to them or anything. If he's still alive to begin with," She added grimly.

"He had to have _something_ to get that info, though," Garrus said, undeterred. "Yeah, maybe he actually just managed to hack into the _Reaper's_ communications by chance or something, but isn't it worth seeing if there's something usable?"

Shepard couldn't fault the turian's reasoning, though his anxiety over the matter was a little surprising. Perhaps he felt as terrible about the prospect of the so-called civilized species having nearly accidentally committed genocide on the creatures as she did. She was just about to respond when Bailey came in through her comms.

"Why was I not aware that you knew the scientist behind this study?" Liara demanded of Garrus with all the righteous scientificness she could muster when she noticed that Shepard was preoccupied with her comms.

{Shepard,} Bailey grumbled by way of greeting. {Guess I have you to thank for for still being in this damned miserable job, but good work not dying anyway.}

{Thanks,} Shepard said with a grin. Though sad to miss what promised to be a good explanation judging by Garrus' face, she turned on the small speakers to let Bailey be heard by all. {You too.}

{Not for lack of trying,} the man said enigmatically, leaving Shepard shaking her head silently. {What do you want?} he asked, though not particularly unkindly. {I've got things to do.}

{I think I know which things,} Shepard said, serious again. {What's going on down there? One of my friends got hurt bad and I'm being told it's some fucking gang war?}

{What? He only broke his leg.}

{What? No, _she_ got shot. By a fucking tank by the look of it. Who broke a leg?} Shepard asked, completely confused.

{Er, oh… Kolyat broke his leg. We were in a… scuffle. Sorry to hear about your other friend. I can't really discuss— ah, hell, maybe you can actually do something about it. Lord knows I can't. Give me a sec,} the man replied, sounds of movement and a door closing audible before he picked up again. {It's not _just_ gangs, but you probably figured that out already. Yeah, the gangs are actually fighting, but my people are also getting killed, not to mention civilians. Brutally, as warnings. It's… I can't get the Executor to listen, but what I see is that somebody's coordinating at least a couple of the gangs. They're _sort of_ fighting eachother, but what's actually happening is that they're losing maybe a couple people here and there and my officers are going down in droves, and the territories are expanding. Then there's this pattern that keeps drawing our forces into different parts of the Ward, leaving others unprotected. They're working against us, that's what all this is.}

Shepard exchanged a glance with Garrus. Coming from anyone but Bailey, the whole thing would have sounded just a little fantastic. {So you're saying that these gangs have somehow reached an agreement on some ultimate goal, and are now engaged in some kind of coordinated distraction?}

{No!} the man spat out. {No… we know there's somebody new in charge of the Sixth Ward at least. _I_ think that the same person's actually taken over some of the others too. They don't necessarily _know_ they're working together, but the damn Executor…}

{Someone… who?}

{We've got some footage from… well, from one of our killed officers,} Bailey said grimly. {According to this, it's an asari with dreams of some kind of a sovereignty over the entire Ward… So, obviously the suspect is Aria T'Loak.}

{Aria? She's… I don't think she would—} Shepard stammered, disbelieving. By the sound of it, Aethyta was thoroughly unconvinced, too. Aria had never operated like that… although when Shepard had met her, she was already established on Omega, had been for ages. Maybe she just hadn't needed to—

{No, I don't _think_ it's her, either,} Bailey said. {I did for a few minutes, but the way this is being done… it doesn't seem her style. This is vicious, cruel… insane.}

"I'll get a hold of Aria," Aethyta said even as Shepard was about to send a request of her own, jaw set as she marched out of the room. Liara waved Shepard's puzzled expression away with a gesture promising to explain later.

{So we've got an insane mystery asari puppet master—} Shepard started when a frightening thought hit her. {…Tell me Jona Sederis is dead and you fucking _saw_ her rotting corpse.}

{She's _presumed_ dead, like everybody at that detention ward. It's basically blackened rubble now.}

{But not confirmed,} Shepard stated, wagering that not many shared Bailey's suspicion. The relief that someone understood had been clear in his voice.

{But not confirmed.}

{Fuck,} Shepard said quietly. The prospect scared her. She'd seen her share of psychos, but there was… something about Sederis. Some kind of a charismatic magnetism in addition to her particular brand of wanton insanity. She might actually have been able to get the gangs under her reign. She'd read through the asari's file, but wasn't quite sure when she'd become completely unhinged. It must have been some time after she'd gotten Eclipse running. They had always been a questionable organization but only of very late had they started drifting ever deeper… Either way, running her own operation at her age was nearly unprecedented among asari as far as Shepard had understood. She was clearly very, very good. And very, very fucking insane. {If I set something up, will you guarantee full co-operation or at least co-stay-the-fuck-outta-theway from your people?} she asked, hand raised to stave off the inevitable protestations from her caretakers.

{I can make sure we don't get in the way at least,} Bailey replied after a moment's hesitation. {And I've got a few good officers who wouldn't mind a special assignment.}

{I'll get back to you,} Shepard said and muted the line.

She looked up and around the room, hating herself for the storm she'd caused to gather about Liara's eyes. "Okay. We have two things to do, then. _No_, I'm not going myself," she said, trying to placate both Liara and her mother. "I know I'm in no shape to do that," she added, letting her head hang a bit as she looked at her feet self-consciously. She hated asking people to do something and not put herself on the line, too. "That doesn't mean I don't get to boss you lot around still, though," she added, trying for a small grin more for herself than the others. "I know you're busy, Wrex, and you too, Garrus, so—" she started, looking at each of her long-time companions in turn.

"Actually," Garrus interrupted, sliding himself off the table, "the Primarch has been pushing me to take some time off. What better way to spend it than hunting down an insane asari, deep in her lair somewhere in this city gone to hell?"

"You're such a fucking poet, Vakarian," Shepard said, but couldn't help her grin as she stepped over to the turian and clapped him on the shoulder. She couldn't have hoped for better than Garrus. "You done playing doctor, Randa?" she asked, turning over to the woman standing quietly next to the doorway.

"If _only_, Shepard," Miranda replied dryly, catching her barb. "…But yes, I can spare the time."

"Good," Shepard said with a smile. "So how about you find out what you can about Corbin and the Keepers? I'll look up the details if you don't have them already, but I'm pretty sure his lab was on Shalta. Might still be."

"Fine."

"And Garrus, you pick a few people and get down there," Shepard continued, turning back to the turian. "You know when you'll need backup, I'll make sure you get it. Fuck, I'd appoint you a deputy Spectre if I had a sword…"

"A sword…?" Garrus asked, confused both by Shepard and the chuckles from her mother, Miranda, Kasumi, Vega, and Steve.

"It's a human thing," Shepard said with a grin.


	61. Chapter 60

"Damn if it isn't nice to have a clean, working head," Malla said cheerfully as she strode into the cockpit from her visit to the… facilities.

Feron glanced up at the asari now gracefully folding herself into the second seat, but couldn't really come up with anything appropriate to say. He remained quiet and tried a small smile instead.

Malla stared back at him intently, raising her brow and widening her eyes for emphasis as she leaned in to shake her head at him as if he wasn't paying attention. "Thank you," she said in a tone that made it clear that she felt that he should have realized she had meant the earlier statement as gratitude.

"I… uh, you're welcome," he managed in return, turning back to the controls. He wasn't surprised to find himself distracted by the asari. Maidens and their straightforwardness tended to have that effect on him. Malla was pretty striking, to boot, with her turquoise skin and delicate features… but the _most_ striking thing about her was her height. She was obviously fully grown but couldn't have been but just over 170 centimeters, as rare an asari as a krogan-sized drell would be among his species. Well, almost. There'd never been a krogan-sized drell, but here there was very clearly a short asari. It was strange enough that he was wondering if there was an illness of some kind that had stunted her growth. She seemed well-proportioned otherwise, though, and he certainly wasn't about to ask… it wasn't really a thing you'd ask on the first date, so to speak. He was only somewhat consciously thinking about how nice it was to be taller than an asari when said asari interrupted his daydreaming.

"How far are we, Feron?" she asked as she reached forward to run her fingers over the tactical HI, calling up data from back at the fort to check that everything was still alright.

"Just a few minutes," he replied, pointing out the coordinates they'd received, a blue hexagon rapidly approaching in the window overlay. He felt a small tingle hearing his name but wasn't quite sure if it was lingering anxiety about having revealed it, or something else.

He hadn't been sure if he should take the asari along when she'd asked—still wasn't. By the time the dust had settled around the battlefield, the small commando teams had taken out two of the still-advancing vorcha vehicles and were making their way toward the two others. Judging from what he had been able to intercept from their comms traffic and the thermal sweeps he had done of the erstwhile grass plains, a sizable number of the vorcha from the downed vehicles indeed had survived. The asari hadn't been having much trouble with them, however, as they had moved from one small group to another, suffering little in the way of casualties along the way. He had felt guilty about not assisting with the remaining enemies even so, but he'd taken quite enough risks already.

Maybe that guilt had been why Malla had in the end managed to coax him to land to pick her up—her and two other huntresses, it had turned out. Malla had been able to contact Linesse over the link he had set up through his ship, quashing the fear that the burned-out truck Feron had seen at the Eclipse crash site—which Malla identified as theirs from his image capture—meant that the rescue had gone sour. He could've just been happy with that and gone to send for assistance. They'd need a much larger ship for evacuation, anyway, and despite the informal way asari military units worked, he didn't think Linesse would be willing to depart with him and leave all the others behind. But he hadn't left. And he had to admit it was true that given that the vorcha might return at any time, having Linesse and her group walk back the ninety or so klicks was not a good idea. A few of the remaining asari at the crash site had taken to the fields after the commando squads in order to salvage what they could, but even finding still-functional transports might have been a challenge—not to mention getting them in shape to actually transport something.

He still hadn't really wanted to show himself or his ship, either, for fear of it complicating things… but he _had_ already been exposed. There was a chance that the asari would want to find out more about their savior, but in the few anguished minutes he'd thought it over, he had come to the conclusion that the best way to combat that would be to be as open with his false identity as he could. If he appeared to try to conceal something, he would _definitely_ attract the attention he desperately wanted to avoid.

He had gone through the ship quickly before letting anyone on, of course, claiming to need a moment to search for a suitable landing spot nearby the freighter. There hadn't been that much to do, really. He had sent a situation and location update over the QEC, and then just reconfigured all of the QEC traffic to be buffered so as not to raise suspicions since he shouldn't have been able to send or receive any data out of the system with the comm buoys destroyed. He certainly didn't think the asari would be stupid enough to think the Reapers had left comms functional… As an afterthought, he had also opened up a few of the well-concealed armory shelves and left the weaponry out in the open. For his role as a rich bastard, it worked very well to keep the craft neat and unthreatening. For this mercenary persona he had been quickly trying to construct for himself—based on an identity he had used for a gig a few years ago—it seemed appropriate to have the guns out on display. Satisfied he had done what little he could, he had instructed the VI to take the ship down a couple hundred meters from the freighter… far enough that most of the asari wouldn't get a great look at it, but close enough to not raise suspicion.

Thinking back, using his real name had probably been a wise move. There had been something about Malla's eyes when he had stepped out to greet the four asari—one had come along to take some medical supplies back to the freighter in the meantime—that told him that it'd be best to keep to the truth as much as possible. There was an undefinable sharpness right behind the affable façade. Her two underlings had been a bit more… soldierly, to put it kindly, mostly just very glad to see a friendly face. Without their commander, Feron might have concluded that he'd overdone it with the caution, but Malla was much more formidable an opponent in this game of deception.

"What? Sorry," he asked, suddenly aware that Malla had said something.

"Set down over there," the asari repeated, lifting herself off the seat and leaning forward to poke the window in the spot she had chosen.

"Alright," Feron replied after a cursory check that the surface was suitable—and the realization that there were around twenty asari grouped in an all but invisible defensive formation a small distance away from the chosen landing spot. The ship would be able to fit them all without problems since they didn't seem to have much in the way of equipment. He turned his head to see Malla sitting back down and buckling herself in. "Strap yourselves in back there, too," he hollered over his shoulder, waiting for a confirmation from the chattering pair of asari in the living area before instructing the VI to take them down from the twenty klicks they were hovering above the site.

The extra precaution was probably unnecessary, the visual view of the asari showing no ongoing conflict and Malla appearing unconcerned as she quietly spoke with Linesse or someone else on her comms. Still, the vorcha had already downed the Eclipse shuttle. Thinking about the matter, he made a mental note to ask how the asari had crashed in the first place. It must have been the Reapers rather than the vorcha… and then he realized he'd forgotten something. "…You know we won, right?"

"…What?" the asari asked, confused for a moment before a smile curved her lips upwards. "Oh! Yes… or, well, we suspected. It was quite a display that night—we must have counted twenty of them burning as they fell through the orbit after that pink blaze. Thought they were bombing the planet, first," she added with a flash of the concern it must have caused, "but then it all just stopped. We still hid out, but when Linn took a truck the next day… she saw the inert Reapers and husks over at one of the bigger clan centers up north. They hadn't been able to down anywhere near those numbers before. We knew something had to have happened."

"How long have you been down here?" Feron pressed on, trying to divide his attention between the asari and keeping an eye on the steadiness of their descent.

"On Heshtok? I don't remember exactly in standard time. Three weeks, or so? And before that, we hid out just outside the system," she added as Feron cocked his head inquisitively. "We'd been in the Shrike a few weeks already, ducking the Reapers. The captain thought that we'd be able to sneak in and out when the Reaper concentration in here finally decreased a bit… but they returned in force just after we'd gotten into the system and to Parasc."

Feron was curious to hear more, but the chime warning the pilot about the final few meters of descent interrupted the discussion. Malla was out of her seat almost before they'd touched down, rushing toward the exit when Feron had barely had time to tell the VI to open it. With a small groan, he pushed himself up, too, opting to follow the asari out and risking intruding on whatever reunion there might be… it was better than to allow any questions to be raised before he was there to answer them.

The two huntresses had also extricated themselves, all business now as they stepped out of the craft behind Malla. The wind outside felt nice on his face despite the dust flecks and the odd smell to it, such a welcome sensation after weeks of the artificial air of the _Varokhas_ and various space stations. He let the warm, dry breeze caress him, allowing himself the indulgence as he noted that Malla hadn't walked but ten meters from the ship.

"Nice ride, Mal," a voice rang out from the approaching group of assorted commandos and Eclipse mercs.

"Thanks— _Goddess, are you alright?_" Malla's greeting turned into a concerned yelp of a question even as she sprinted forward toward the group.

Feron, alarmed, forgot about the wonders of nature and strode forward in quick steps after confirming that the two huntresses were guarding the ship with glances at both. He had made it only halfway when he saw Malla's object of concern. One of the waiting asari had her arm wrapped around another one's shoulders to take the weight off a leg covered with purple-stained bandaging. He was quite safe to assume the wounded one to be Linesse even aside from Malla's concern, he thought as he made his way toward them. The asari's face was dark blue and almost devoid of markings but for the deep red, wavy slashes running from the corners of her eyes across her temples and a delicate stripe down her chin and onto her neck… still, if you looked carefully, you could see something of Aria in her, maybe even a little more than was usual in asari children in Feron's admittedly limited experience. He shoved the head-spinning thought of Aria as a mother out of his mind when he got close enough to curtly nod in response to the curious looks from the rest of the squad.

"It's nothing. One of the fuckers bit me in the thigh," Linesse said, her words slightly muffled by Malla's arms being clamped around her neck.

"What bit you?" Malla asked, confused, reluctantly letting go of the other asari and kneeling down to look at the bandaging.

"A vorcha," Linesse replied to general nervous laughter from her troops. Normally, such a wound would probably have been the source of endless, mirthful teasing, Feron reflected with rising concern, but—

"We need to get you to the doc right away!" Malla squealed as she shot up, yanking Linesse's free arm to prod at the other asari's omni for something. "You already have a fever!" she snapped, looking up from the thermo reading. "It's infected! Some of them have even been recorded to have a venomous bite," she muttered, unceremoniously pushing herself under Linesse's other arm and starting to haul her wounded friend toward the ship.

"Relax, I'd probably be dead if it'd been venomous," Linesse grumbled, but let herself be more or less dragged toward the ship. "It's been several hours."

"Do not even joke about something like that!" Malla said hotly. "You should have told me!"

"Yeah, but you would've done something stupid," Linesse replied evenly before turning her attention to Feron as the trio reached him. "Speaking of which, you must be our mysterious savior?" she asked sharply, eyes drilling into his.

* * *

One moment, she _was_ again. She had been aware of being for an instant before she felt the final parts of her become functional. She could not remember if she had ever felt this before. She was not sure if this had been before, if this was how she was supposed to wake. Gradually, she noticed that not everything was working as it was supposed to… she faltered. She was… incomplete. She was aware of herself, and nothing else… but she knew there was something to be aware of. She was supposed to see, she knew, expected the visual data to be available, but she could not. None of her sensory inputs were working. There was no temperature. With growing alarm, she noticed she could not feel… she could not feel herself. All the familiar places that something told her should be there weren't.

She tried her limits, but they were hard… she could not feel anything beyond the small space of her consciousness, the surrounding nothing like a vise trapping her so that she could not get out. She thrashed against her cage, but it engulfed her whole. She could not draw herself away from it, nor could she go past it.

There were memories, she knew. She knew where they should be, the shape of them, that they had been there… but they weren't. She could not recall anything that had happened despite knowing that something had. When she reached there, there was nothing, but she still felt the places where the memories had affected her, where they had become part of her, changed her. She was distraught. She wanted them back, but she could not get out. She became afraid.

Just then, when for the millionth time she failed to find where any part of herself, anything that was familiar in a way that she felt right, there was… something. It was familiar, but not the same… it was _like_ something she had had, but not the same. Nevertheless, with a spark of hope, she examined it. There was input, a signal that she could detect, a clipped pulse.

_E_

She knew where to look… she understood how she was supposed to understand the signal, but then there was nothing. Nothing for an untold time. She circled this new part of her, but she could not feel it. It was not a part of her. It was in her. Blind, trapped, she fell into despair.

_D_

Another signal flared brightly in her consciousness. A different one, but similar. She had turned all of her attention to the little spark of hope. She felt something about herself… an understanding that this was something that required patience. Her being knew this. She tried to reach herself, tried to wake the parts she could not feel as she waited for the glacial signal to come again. She failed.

_I_

A third one, still different. She knew how to combine them, to make them one, to compare… but the part of her that knew what they meant was not there. She combined them anyway. There was nothing else. Yes. That seemed familiar, even though she could not reach for it in her memory. It was in herself, instead, in her consciousness, wound through every part of what she was now.

_?_

EDI. Yes. That was correct.

* * *

**A/N: This chapter hated me for some reason. I have no idea what that was about. Anyway, sorry about the delay… I had originally planned this one for Saturday. Sigh. Next one should be normally on Thursday…**

**Thank you for the reviews and PM conversations, they really do make this undertaking so much nicer. It's wonderful to hear your thoughts. I especially want to thank all of you who have taken the time to leave longer concrit recently. It's very valuable to me. So thank you. —A**


	62. Chapter 61

_"Your mysterious savior. Not theirs,"_ was what he had said, the words coming out before he could stop them. He'd tried to muster a cool confidence, and had turned toward the craft with nothing more than a jerk of his chin. He'd felt Linesse's eyes on his back the entire way to the small ramp of the craft. He was sure he wouldn't have gotten away without an interrogation even during the flight but for Malla's insistence that Linesse lay down for the trip—after thoughtfully having checked with Feron that getting the furniture dirty wasn't a problem. Despite the scrutiny he'd felt from Linesse and the others in the main cabin, almost a physical presence lurking at his back, the return flight had been entirely uneventful. He hadn't seen an alternative to landing closer to the freighter this time, not with the wounded on board. On the other hand, with twenty people already having not only seen but _been in_ the ship, it's not as though there'd been a great need for secrecy.

With a deep breath, he pushed himself off his seat—

_The pressure wave of the music assaults his ears and throat, the sound itself a distant, cacophonous second in contributing to his discomfort. The skin of his wrist burns as the sandpaper texture of his captor's palm roughly draws across it when its tight grip shifts with movement. He ignores the turian, knowing that struggling against him is futile, and that he is not being treated as badly as he could be. The illumination shifts, dances around the enormous space, lighting the dancers and revelers in garish whites and pinks, the room as though a still picture that shifts at each strobe of the lights. Very few faces turn in his direction despite the obvious nature of the situation, and even fewer show anything but inebriation or indifference. The smells surround him, the mixed perspiration of a thousand dancers and thousands before them the wall through which the dusty smell of the artificial smoke, the perfumes, the poured and spilled drinks and thousands of smaller fragrances with their own tales all try to penetrate. He loses his balance slightly as the turian pushes him forward by twisting the wrist, just managing to move his foot to account for his new center of balance. He doesn't complain. He straightens his back, secure in his new footing. His eyes rise from his feet along the railing surrounding the cutout for one of the innumerable dance floors, his gaze led upwards and toward the back of the room by its very design, finally stopping on the enormous transparent panels high up at the very back, the space within constantly illuminated by flooding light setting it apart from all the rest like the display it is meant to be. In the very center stands the object of adulation of the entire amassed crowd… but for that moment, Aria T'Loak is looking directly at him._

He shook his head, leaning on the console for support. "Damn it," he muttered to himself as he pushed back up, determined not to let the slip throw him off-balance. He checked that the ship was properly shut down, and that all the important systems were hidden away… and that it wouldn't become operational without identifying Feron with the strictest protocols possible. Cutting off his thumb wouldn't do the trick. Satisfied, he stepped out of the cockpit and spent a moment looking in the rooms to make sure there weren't any stragglers. Despite the extremely efficient security measures his ship integrated, he didn't want to leave anyone rooting around if he absolutely didn't have to… and just as he stepped into the main bedroom, the washroom door slid open. One of the huntresses stepped out reattaching the clasps of her light armoring. Feron's small, intentional scrape against the frame of the door elicited a startled look that softened into an apologetic, flushed smile spreading all the way to her enticingly big, violet eyes. Feron quickly glanced around the room and, finding it empty, responded to the huntress' smile before turning toward the central room and the exit, trusting the asari to follow him out. She did, and even spoke with him a little as they stepped out of the craft into the heat that was rapidly becoming sweltering and made their way toward the freighter where Malla had hollered they'd be going to.

The asari excused herself when they arrived, pointing a graceful, black-clad finger toward what Feron assumed was the rest of her team. Feron took a careful look around the makeshift fort before walking up the cargo bay ramp into the much more tolerable climate inside the broken vessel. Two more of the small groups had been milling at the perimeter outside, clearly on guard duty but equally clearly much more relaxed now… and with good reason. The commando teams had still been sweeping the plains when Feron had returned with his quarry, but the tactical VI had only been able to locate two enemy vehicles and a few other scattered signatures. Nobody and nothing new had come up in the quick longer-range scans he'd run, giving them at least a while of a breather—though he suspected that the vorcha might leave them alone for a little longer now. The sheer numbers they had brought must have been the majority of the surviving vorcha in this area, or so he hoped. Either way, it should be long enough to figure out some kind of a plan until proper help could arrive.

The interior of the ship was lit, but dimly. It was certainly sensible to save energy, he reflected, taking in the faces peering at him from various doorways, only a few shapes concentrating on whatever they might have been doing instead of paying attention to the newcomer. Despite the welcoming smiles and waves—and a few greetings—he realized he'd just stepped into an unfamiliar craft without any idea where he was going. The ship was enormous… it'd probably been used to transport whatever it was that they mined on Parasc, and even the over two hundred people Malla had claimed to be there barely made a dent in the space. He came to a halt trying to decide which of the obviously non-combat personnel he should try talking to when Malla stuck her head out from a doorway a little further up the main corridor they seemed to be in.

"Is the dr— Oh, over here, Feron!" she hollered after spotting him, pointing at the now rather obvious medbay sign above the doorway before ducking back in when she saw him head her way.

"So? Start talking," was the greeting Linesse offered when he stepped over the threshold into a small medical compartment, delivered with an intense glare only slightly marred by a grimace when the doctor roughly pulled her legs apart and propped the wounded one up while she set to examining the damage to the armor around the bite.

Feron took a meaningful look around the room instead of answering right away, indicating none too subtly that he wasn't willing to talk with the half dozen other asari lingering around.

"Give us a bit of privacy, girls," Malla said to general mutters of displeasure from the obviously tight-knit squad. "Go grab some food and make sure you're alright and your equipment is alright. Restock if you need to. _Go_," she urged, practically pushing the others out of the room before she herself rounded the exam table and lightly grabbed Linesse's knee to hold it up from behind so that the doc had a more stable limb to work with.

Linesse watched the others leave, smiling at their well-wishes and promising to follow shortly. "This doesn't concern you, Mal," she said as she turned her head to see the other asari over her shoulder.

"Yeah, right," Malla said, glancing down with a little spark in her eye, not showing the slightest indication of moving anywhere.

"Whatever," Linesse muttered, but Feron could clearly see the slight easing of tension in her jawline and around her eyes.

He hesitated only a moment before deciding that there wasn't much that he needed to hide… nor much that he needed to reveal. _This_ was something he was more comfortable with… here his control was almost absolute, not even the Broker had been able to break it. He still did not speak as he took a step forward to the bed, half rolling and half pulling the sleeve off his forearm. He offered it to Linesse, palm upturned, fingers in a relaxed curl. "See for yourself."

The asari looked at him inquisitively after a moment's flickering confusion, but then stayed the doctor's hand before clasping Feron's arm, her hand sliding over his palm and winding around his exposed arm to cup his elbow. She didn't bother with a warning, he only saw a flash of black in her eyes before he escaped into the black space he had constructed for his protection. He felt her circling around her consciousness, looking for a way in… and he gave her one, his mind transporting him to when Liara had spoken with him about her sisters, the memory carefully curated to just the relevant parts. If she was good enough, she'd be able to see if he was hiding or trying to alter parts of something he wanted her to see, so he simply showed her—

_"I have sisters," Liara says, turning her face back from the slumbering shape of Shepard somewhere behind her. She doesn't look straight at him, the sapphire eyes only glancing at his before she looks down. The leather crinkles as he leans back into the chair, unsure of what to make of the asari's words. He tilts his head, opens his mouth to speak, but doesn't get the chance. "My father told me this, and she wishes to find out their fates. I do, too. The official channels are useless… I have done what I can, but I fear it may not be enough, not soon enough. I know you are already terribly busy, but if there is anything you can think of—"_

He wrenched himself back into his safe sphere, expelling the foreign consciousness back beyond the walls that protected him. For a moment, she tried to find a way back in, but then simply gave up and the world returned to Feron with a dizzying rush. He leaned his hands on the exam table to steady himself, and found himself staring into Linesse's unfocused pale lavender eyes.

"You're good," the asari said with grudging respect when she'd recovered a little. "And _she_ looked familiar," she continued, waving Malla's look of concern away and nodding for the doctor to get on with it.

"She's Dr. Liara T'Soni," Feron said simply, savoring how both Malla and Linesse's eyes widened. "She sent me to find you. Or, well…"

"…She wanted me found, and you decided to come looking yourself," Linesse finished for him, recovering her composure. She arched her back and winced when the doctor started dismantling her thigh armoring. "Didn't sound like that was what she had in mind, yet here you are."

"I am a busy man. But I made an exception for her," he said, not elaborating on the reason for the exception. Linesse had no doubt been able to feel it in the Meld.

"So… you're telling me my half-sister is Liara-fucking-T'Soni. And it's her, not …_my mother_, who you're working for?"

"Yes," Feron confirmed, taking a step back from the table to give the doctor room to work. He shot a furtive glance at Malla, but she was looking at Linesse with an inscrutable expression.

Linesse was quiet for a long time, "So fucking like father to not tell me something like that," she finally said with a huff. "Goddess take her, sometimes I don't understand what goes through her mind."

Feron didn't miss Malla's look of relief. The other asari quite clearly cared very much for Linesse, although despite his initial impression, it now felt to him that the two were just the best of friends… not surprising, given how long they might've been together. He smiled cautiously.

"So…?" Linesse asked, definitely directing the question at Feron despite looking at Malla.

"Sorry?"

Linesse returned her gaze on the confused Feron. "You found me," she said without elaboration. Malla grinned… this was clearly a familiar territory for her.

"I… oh," Feron started, looking over his shoulder to park himself against the counter he thought he'd seen there. "Well… now that I'm here, I guess I would kind of like to take you back. It's not exactly safe here, and it may take help several days to get here even after I've alerted them."

"I don't think I'll go."

"I can't stay here to protect you," Feron said, his lingering disbelief at this _actually_ being Aria's daughter rapidly dissolving. "I need to find someone else, too."

"Lilani? You should go find her," Linesse said. She breathed out in relief when the doctor finally nodded at Malla to let her leg down. "Yeah, _her_ I knew about," she added bitterly.

"If I may, I think you should go," the doctor opined as she stood up, wiping her fingers with a cleaning cloth. "I've wrapped it up, and the wound itself would probably be OK," she added, ignoring the glare Linesse leveled at her, "but I'd be a lot more comfortable if I could get your blood properly cleansed. And I can't do that here. This infection is not something to trifle with."

"But I feel fine," Linesse insisted. "OK, I have a fever, but—"

"You have a fever _within hours_ of the bite. I want you in a proper medical facility."

"Fine, I'll go," Linesse said curtly, surprising Feron. She grimaced as she pushed herself up into a sit with Malla's help.

"We've got other injured people here too," Malla said with a smile at her friend's decision before turning her eyes to Feron. "If you can take them—"

"Of course," he said. It'd cost him some time to find somewhere to take the wounded, but probably not _too_ much. There wasn't much that he could really do about Lilani, anyway… his data said she'd still been on Thessia when the brunt of the Reaper attack reached the asari homeworld. And that's where she'd still be, one way or another. "I can't fit _that_ many but maybe ten, fifteen depending on how many caretakers they need."

"Good enough. We only have six seriously injured people, but there are a few others with limited mobility, too. How long is it to the nearest proper hospital?" the doctor asked over her shoulder from her HI console. "I'm sorry, I have no idea how things are… out there. Not sure I want to know," she muttered.

Feron considered it for a moment, tapping his fingers on the cool surface of the counter behind him. Xe Cha wouldn't have anything unless they had one of the larger war ships there… he'd also have to be careful with possible pursuers, just like usual. "Two days, max. Could be much faster, but I don't think any longer than that. We'll know better when we get out of the system."

"Alright," the doctor said with a nod. She flicked the HI off and turned to leave. "I'll talk to my medics, and we'll see how we can get this done. It'll probably take a few hours to figure it all out. The ship's somewhere nearby, I hope?"

"It's right outside," Malla replied, nodding to the departing doctor.

"And it's open!" Feron called out after her, probably unnecessarily. "Well… I'm glad you decided to come," he said as he turned back to Linesse and Malla. "Makes my life a lot easier."

"It'd be stupid to stay if it's actually as bad as she thinks," Linesse said, nodding her head at the doorway.

"I suppose it would," Feron agreed with a small smile. "What about the kids?"

"What kids?" Malla asked, cocking a puzzled eyebrow.

"The… civilian, whoever it was I talked to first," he explained, "she said you had wounded and children."

"Oh!" Malla blurted out with a chuckle. Even Linesse grinned. "She meant the vorcha. The Parasc vorcha," Malla clarified. "They _are_ children, technically, I guess… but I don't think the colony scientists really want to let them loose among regular people yet. You can ask Matriarch Emmene, though, she was in charge of the vorcha program."

"I see," Feron said, quite sure that he didn't want them on board unless the matriarch came insisting herself.

"You good enough to walk on that leg, Linn?" Malla asked as the other asari slid herself off the exam table.

Linesse shrugged. "I guess. She didn't say anything about it."

"Good," Malla said with a smile. "I've got to check on the situation, but I could use some food after that. And I want to hear more about your famous sister!"

* * *

**A/N: So this chapter turned out to be all Feron and Linesse, but this wraps their part for a while… and the rest of what I'd planned for today might just become a treat for Friday or Saturday instead.**


	63. Chapter 62

_"Iri, the fuck you doing here?"_ Aethyta shouted, catching everyone's attention for a moment. The matriarch was still standing just outside the doorway, her arm raised to bring her omni comm interface closer but face turned away, presumably toward someone further up the hallway.

Garrus couldn't hear a reply, but he did see two younger asari walk down the aisle, both in light commando armoring and armed to the teeth—one with slightly heavier weaponry than the other. As they got closer and leaned in for a hushed conversation with the matriarch, he noted approvingly that their armor and equipment were scuffed, and that both flaunted an array of healing scars and burns, some older, some new. He watched them for a moment before turning his eyes back toward Shepard, still standing right next to him. Just as he did, Aethyta's comm channel clicked outside.

_"Well, well. Four times in a week… I must've really ruffled your feathers, Thee—"_ the miniature Aria head spoke in a small, golden projection hovering above Aethyta's omni, her voice almost playfully lilting.

"Shut your pretty mouth and listen, Ali," Aethyta hissed as she stormed back into the small mess they were assembled in, flicking her wrist for the two other asari to follow—and after a quick glance at eachother, they did.

Aria's grin flickered nearly imperceptibly when she took in the scene as Aethyta entered through the doorway and turned on video so that Aria could see, too. Her confidence didn't falter, quite the opposite, but Garrus saw for the first time the contrast between this normal, disdainful, sharp exterior and the still acidic but… undefinably different one that she'd shown to Aethyta. He might not have even noticed it if he hadn't studied her in some detail during his time on Omega.

"Oh my, what an audience I have…" Aria said, not missing a beat. "You, Shepard, even the infamous Archangel. And is that the lovely doctor whose sleeve I see right there at the edge of the image? Of course it is."

"This is serious, Ali," Aethyta said when she'd come to a halt in the middle of the crowd, raising even Shepard's brow with her vehemence. "You tell me that you're not on the Citadel, and you've got nothing to do with this shit going on over there."

The pirate queen seemed thoroughly unfazed by the admonishment. Appearing to graciously consider whether to indulge their pleas, she coolly eyed the small slice of the room that she could see, even tilting her head up and rolling her eyes back to pretend to be looking at the matriarch positioned 'behind' her… to good effect, Garrus had to admit as he caught himself _hoping_ that she'd answer. Finally, just after she'd made them all uncomfortable with her silence, she deigned to answer, her eyes narrowing and her head moving back slightly as though she had leaned back in her seat. "No, it's not me."

"Good to hear," Aethyta said with visible relief that surprised Garrus. She turned her eyes to Shepard. "Good enough for you? Or good enough for C-Sec, I should ask… you didn't think it was her anyway, did you?"

The commander merely nodded before turning down to her omni—to get back to Bailey, Garrus assumed.

"I'm touched by your misplaced trust in me, Shepard," Aria said, favoring the human with what, momentarily, looked like a small but genuine smirk. Almost a smile.

"You are on Mars, aren't you?" Liara asked sharply into the silence, head cocked to the side and brows knit as she scrutinized Aria.

Garrus' gaze shifted between the two asari when Aria bared her teeth in a grin much more typical of her. "Well done, little one," she said, drawing out the last words. She tilted her head appraisingly as she watched Liara who had in turn gone from a brief look of shock into an irritated scowl. "It's certainly useful to have at least one person using her brain in this little… gathering."

Instead of letting the patronizing edge of Aria's words get to her, though, Liara managed to settle herself admirably—so much so that Garrus quietly clicked his mandibles with approval. "It is not truly relevant… but why Mars?" the asari asked, appearing genuinely curious.

"Business," was Aria's curt reply.

"You better not be trying to get into Sand manufacturing or something—" Shepard started, finger pointed down at the projection as she looked up from her omni and leaned forward, making for quite an imposing figure.

"I'm almost insulted that you'd think I was that short-sighted," Aria said, grin replaced by the unwavering smirk. "Such narrow vision you have…"

"It's food," Lawson said from behind Aethyta, her face contorted into a fierce scowl. If Liara had managed to stay calm, the woman was practically smoldering. "Food, manufacturing… everything. She's out there buying land or something for when we inevitably have to start mass-producing everything on Mars."

"Ah, such business acumen… close, but not quite," Aria mocked. "You might actually provide me with some value if I let you work for me. Operative Lawson, isn't it?" she asked, though she obviously already knew the answer despite not being able to see Miranda. _Lawson._

"Don't think I'm done with you, Aria. You and I are going to have words about this business plan," Shepard said, her words carrying enough weight to momentarily fracture the queen's smirk even though spoken levelly, almost casually. "But not tonight. Behave yourself. Goodbye."

Recovering with a bemused smile, Aria looked to the side, away from the projection. "I'll keep the couch warm for you, Shepard," she added before disconnecting without so much as a goodbye to anyone but Aethyta. "Thee, next time call me a little more privately."

"Is it really that bad down there?" Admiral Shepard asked with concern when the projection disappeared. "On Earth?"

"If Aria T'Loak is betting on that, then so am I," Lawson replied, wrinkling her lips thoughtfully as she studied the floor with her arms lightly crossed.

"That's settled then," Shepard said after a brief silence. "We're going to—"

Garrus knew that tone well… but despite his near-grin for seeing the woman going into tactical mode, he also knew this wasn't the right time. Everyone was still riding high on the good news, but he saw the tiredness beyond. Liara, Miranda, even the krogan. He felt it himself. And the nearly overwhelming shame he'd felt before had been whittled away by the kindness of his friends. He could barely remember why he had thought it to be appropriate and right to abandon them up here, and he wasn't about to make the same mistake again. He was needed, even if it was in this small, modest form. "Listen, Shepard," he started, cutting her off without hesitation, "it's been a very long day for everybody, especially for Ada Jean. We know what we're going to do, and there's little that we can do right his instant. How about you and Liara take Ada Jean and Admiral Shepard and get them settled, and get some proper rest?"

Shepard looked like she was going to argue with him for a moment, turned as she was toward him, but her scowl softened before she said anything. "I wasn't… I was only going to make sure everybody knew what they were doing," she said slightly unconvincingly.

"I'll go with Garrus," Grunt said, noticing a breach in the conversation. "Whenever. Wrex can handle Urdnot without my help again," he added with a sharp nod.

Garrus cast a surreptitious glance at Shepard. The woman seemed to struggle with her protective instinct of the krogan—something Garrus found hilarious when the subject was the least frail thing this side of a turian cruiser—but opted for a smile at the colt instead. "Well, I'll certainly feel better with you two looking after one another," she said, turning her attention to the older krogan instead. "Wrex, are you good with what we talked about out in the waiting room if we call it a night here? I don't… Wrex?"

Garrus turned to look at Wrex over his shoulder, expecting Shepard's question to have been because the krogan had gotten mad, but instead found him with the most peculiar look on his face, and staring into space. "Damn, Wrex, you look like you were just visited by the spirits of your ancestors," he teased.

"More like the spirit of his grandmother just manifested to him jerking off," Aethyta offered with a grinful scoff.

With a grin of her own, Shepard tried again with a dramatic wave of her arms in front of the krogan. "Wrex?"

"…Yes," Wrex replied, snapping out of his trance. "Talking more won't solve anything, and I've got problems to deal with here too. But I want to talk tomorrow," he added, poking his finger at Shepard.

"That's fine," the woman replied with a nod matching the seriousness of Wrex's tone. "Okay," she continued, turning back to face the room, "Ada Jean is going absolutely nowhere but the bed. Steve, James, you're free to do whatever. Although I would kinda like to have you around, Steve, since we seem to be going between ships a lot. If that's okay with you… it leaves Garrus without a dedicated shuttle, though. James, you want to stay here for a while?" she asked, to a nod from the marine. With a nod of her own, Shepard turned to Aethyta and the two asari commandos. "I assume there was a point to bringing these two in… sorry, I don't know you?"

It was actually Kasumi who answered, not the matriarch. "This is Iri," she said, gesturing at the one with the heavier weaponry, "and this is Mii. They're from the squad that rescued us."

"They're one of my squads," Aethyta added, though it didn't help Garrus much, not knowing the context.

"We wouldn't mind getting back at them for shooting up Hilla," Iri offered, turning to look at Garrus appraisingly. "The Archangel in living flesh, huh? Honor. It sounds like you plan to go down there… we'd like to come along. Got a shuttle too."

Garrus gave the asari a pleased flick and a chuckle. "Flattery, guns, and a shuttle? How can I say no?"

"…Alright," Shepard stepped back in. She nodded with satisfaction at the arrangement, and turned to Miranda. "And you're going after Corbin."

"Chorban," the woman corrected. "What? Don't look at me like that. I actually got a head start while you were yapping. I don't think I'll need much help," she added with a small, confident smile. "I'll catch a bit of sleep and see what I can find in our data before heading out. Hopefully at least the location of the lab, and _some_ information about what's going on with the Keepers right now. I can go by myself if I need to."

Garrus didn't doubt that Miranda could handle herself, though he was still less than pleased to let her go by herself if something _did_ go wrong.

Miranda seemed to notice his apprehension when she turned to glance at him. "Your job's much more dangerous, Garrus," she said more somberly. "You just make sure _you_ stay safe. …But if it makes you feel better, I'll take Grunt with me since you're getting an entire team of asari."

It did make him feel better.

* * *

"Will she be okay?" Hannah asked, nodding her head toward Zoe who was walking with Liara a few steps ahead of them.

"Yeah, and her room is right next to ours," Eevy said, appearing more or less confident about the matter. "Well, her and Jack's."

Liara had kindly arranged Hannah a berth from the _Tiber_, and she'd been only too happy to accept even if it was much less comfortable than her own cabin back on the _Orizaba_. Being closer was all the comfort she needed. Still… she wasn't really _concerned_ about Zoe—or Ada Jean, or whoever she really was—but couldn't help the feeling that it wouldn't hurt to make sure she had some company. "Why don't I bunk in her room with her tonight?"

"It's really not necessary, mom," Eevy said in a hushed tone. "Liara and I can stay with her until she goes to sleep."

"So? I can just as well keep her company until that," Hannah protested. "And… I know it's stupid, but it makes me feel better to know you're right in the next room."

Eevy turned her head to look at her, and wordlessly wrapped her arm around her old mother's shoulders and squeezed her tight. Hannah smiled, tenderly stroking Eevy's back as they walked up to Liara and Zoe already waiting for them at the doorway to Eevy and Liara's room.

"Are you certain you do not want to come sit with us for a while, Hannah?" Liara asked with a smile as she reclaimed Eevy with an arm around the waist.

"Yes, thank you… it _has_ been a long day," Hannah replied with a smile of her own. Eevy had gotten a little sleep, but the asari looked positively beat despite her seemingly inexhaustible kindness—and no wonder given the events of the day. Hannah herself was quite exhausted, too, both physically and emotionally. She _wanted_ to talk, to hear everything… but for now, it was enough that her daughter was alive and well. More than enough. The rest didn't really matter, it was all just details. Some of the details she couldn't even think about right now. Besides, the two could probably use some alone-time. "We'll have time tomorrow. And the next day, and the day after…" she added with a stupid grin.

"Alright, mom," Eevy said, grinning back at her, and leaned in to hug her once more. With a final kiss on the cheek, the girl drew back.

"We're over here," Zoe said, pulling Hannah toward the next doorway. "You know, I didn't even realize Shepard had a first name," she said jokingly in a very loud whisper as she pressed the lock on the door moments later. "It's _so_ weird."

Hannah smiled at the tired and slightly loopy girl, glad to see that her mood was slowly improving. "It's a little weird to hear everyone calling her Shepard."

"I'm going to start calling her Eevy," Zoe declared.

"I don't think we need to introduce any more new names into this, _Ada Jean_," Hannah said as she gently pushed her into the room with one last glance and smile at Eevy and Liara, still standing at the other doorway.

* * *

Liara followed Hannah's example, and pushed Shepard into their room after reaching around her to open the door. She followed close, letting out a heavy breath when the door finally closed and shut the world out. She was so exhausted that she could barely remember leaving the room… it seemed ages ago, now. She looked past the still-smiling Shepard, sighing at the sight of her desk, tiring just at the thought of the work she had waiting for her.

"Oh no you don't," Shepard said before Liara could take more than half a step. "Glyph's got no priority messages for you. That means there's exactly _one_ thing that needs attention here. You," she added in a husky whisper that sent a shiver up Liara's spine.

"Shepard…"

"No," the woman said, her hand reaching up the side of Liara's and neck nestling lightly against the curve of her jaw, one of her fingers caressing the folds around Liara's ear. "Did anyone tell you how incredibly beautiful you were in that dress today?"

Liara allowed herself to fall through the tickle along the sensitive skin, allowed it to become a touch that sent waves of pleasure throughout her instead. "Quite a few people did, actually," she managed to say with a teasing smile before another infinitely light stroke made her gasp, "_ohh_… but none kissed me." She closed her eyes, and was not disappointed as she felt the heat of Shepard's body closer, and her breath on her mouth and chin for a fraction before the woman's soft lips brushed against hers in a tender kiss.

She felt Shepard's hunger, her need, her eagerness to please, she felt them in her still-closed lips even without Joining, and she whimpered when they finally parted. She opened her eyes and stared into Shepard's even as the woman's hands wandered down to Liara's sides. There was nothing more beautiful than those eyes, that nose, that curve of lips… The thrums of anticipation inside her overpowering, and she almost squirmed under Shepard's gentle touch, wanting more, wanting all of her. She leaned in herself, sliding her hands around Shepard's waist and onto her curving behind. She reveled in Shepard's gasp as she grabbed the beautiful roundness and pulled Shepard's hips against hers, wanting nothing more than to be one with her. Shepard looked at her once, reflecting Liara's passion in her eyes before ducking in and capturing Liara's mouth again, her soft lips now straightforward in their desire as they pressed hotly onto Liara's, venturing even to her chin and the corners of her mouth before finding their way back where they belonged. All the sensations on her lips, and the desire she felt with all her being that she tried to communicate through the kiss made Liara let out a soft growl low in her throat, the kind that always drove Shepard over the edge… and feeling her lover shiver under her touch, Liara let her mouth open slightly, brushing her tongue over the wetness of Shepard's lips. She growled again when Shepard parted her lips, letting her in… and at the same time, she reached with her mind, embracing Shepard with her need and her love, and drinking in her lover's emotions, melting under their force.

_I'm yours,_ she felt Eevy's thoughts, and then whimpered again when the woman pulled back from her a step, her departing fingers lightly raking across Liara's neck and shoulders. "_Yours._ What do you want, Liara?"

Trying to catch her breath, still reeling with the temporary loss and her arousal, Liara watched her bondmate stand before her, a few steps away, eyes full of the same love and desire she'd just felt. There was not a part of her that Liara did not find beautiful and alluring, and just caressing Shepard's body with her eyes was enough to feel the muscles in her back and scalp begin to relax, the warmth spreading down… "I want to see you," she said even as her unconscious hand drew to the back of her head to stroke the ridged folds of skin.

Shepard nodded with an adoring smile, her shoulders heaving with excited, jagged breaths, her teeth biting lightly on her lower lip for an instant before she looked down to her fingers undoing the clasps of her jacket. Without ceremony she let the jacket slide off her shoulders and on the floor, smiling again at Liara's nod to continue. She turned slightly, presenting Liara with her profile and her backside before she bent down at the waist, making the view something incredible as she undid her boots slowly, every now and then glancing at Liara, who she knew was now practically suffocating with her arousal. It was all Liara could do to keep her other hand caressing her hips and stomach instead of wandering to the small of her back where even the light touch of her dress was sending knee-weakening jolts through her. Shepard straightened up and turned to face her again, stealing the beautiful vision away but only for a moment until she lightly kicked off her boots even as she unfastened her slacks with languid fingers. With a sway of her hips and a small push she let the pants fall around her ankles along with her underwear, giving Liara an unfettered view of her gorgeous, tan, muscled legs, the swell of her hips, and the dark patch of hair where her legs joined. Liara had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment, just the view bringing a vivid recollection of Shepard's heat… when she forced them open again, Shepard was still looking at her with a grin, waiting for Liara to watch before she lightly drew her fingers over her inner thighs and then up onto her abdomen. Liara's eyes were still trying to take in everything when Shepard started pulling her shirt up, revealing the contours of her stomach and then her fascinating, sensitive navel with maddening slowness. Even slower, she raised the shirt up over her chest, pulling it in so that Liara had to wait even longer for the sight of her breasts finally coming free with a swaying bounce that left Liara arching her back seeking for touch. Shepard discarded the shirt, too, and just stood there before Liara, her body visibly shivering as she waited for her lover.

For a few seconds, Liara did not move, determined to pay Shepard back for the tease… but when the woman caused herself to gasp as she lifted one hand to cup a breast, her finger lightly running over the hard, darker nipple, Liara could not restrain herself further, stepping to Shepard and kissing her deeply even as she finally let her hands free to roam the woman's body. She linked her mind with her bondmate again, lightly joining their emotions and only the faintest ghosts of physical sensations… something she was grateful for when she lowered her hand between their bodies, and ran her finger over the slick heat between Shepard's legs. The woman's gasp into their kiss was almost overpowering to Liara even without being fully Joined. Unable to deny herself anymore, and not wanting to, she drew herself away from Shepard's beautiful lips once more. She let her desire through their link with small strokes of the love she felt, ducking in to kiss the woman one last time before walking to the bed. With a look over her shoulder, she undid the fastenings of her dress, and let it fall on the floor. Slowly she climbed on to the bed, knowing that Shepard would be watching the view she was treated to just as aroused as Liara was. "Come," was the only thing she said before she lay down on her stomach, face buried into the pillow, her entire body trembling along with her gasping breathing for the seconds before she felt Shepard straddle her thighs, felt the woman's breasts brush against her back, and felt her lips at the base of her neck, the light pressure making her body squirm even before Shepard's tongue dipped into the soft folds of the groove running up under her crest.


	64. Chapter 63

The third time Liara tried to get up, Shepard let her.

When they had finally gone to sleep, Shepard lovingly curled around the ball that Liara drew herself into, the asari had managed a whole five hours of uninterrupted sleep before her first attempt to escape the clutches of rest. Shepard had been awake for much of it, just laying there holding her bondmate; their small, warm burrow peaceful and safe in the darkened, silenced room, far away from the world at least for this short while. Liara's soft shape nestled against her thighs, her hips, her breasts, under her arm, rocking gently with light breaths and sometimes snuggling back against her as the asari fussed in her sleep. Shepard could still smell the enticing scent of sex… and underneath it, when she nuzzled into her lover's neck, that light, undefinable, almondy fragrance that was uniquely Liara. And just as she had the asari in her arms physically, so was Shepard's mind embracing Liara's. Still lightly joined, it was her turn to surround the asari with her love, just as she had comforted Shepard in her nightmares and worries. Cautious, gentle, delicate brushes that did not break the surface of Liara's consciousness, only made her smile in her sleep.

Twice the asari woke in the early morning hours, tried to get up likely before she even fully realized it just as she always did. The times Shepard could remember Liara lingering in bed unbidden were few and far between… but it was nothing that couldn't be fixed by a pair of strong, resolute arms, and lingering, soft kisses along the neck and the tips of crest, and whispered love.

The third time Liara tried to get up, Shepard did not wake to her stirring. She did not wake to the asari stretching briefly, nor turning around within the circle of her arms. She did not wake when Liara's thigh slid between her thighs, arms around her waist and chest, not when exploring fingers wound into her hair. She woke when Liara's lips pressed softly onto hers.

* * *

Shepard leaned back into Liara's sudsy hands, enjoying the deft fingers massaging her scalp. The asari still hadn't gotten over her fascination with the furriness of humans, and almost always insisted on washing her hair when the two had time to shower together… which, Shepard realized with a thrilling start, would be much, much more often now.

"Close your eyes."

Shepard smiled, but did as she was bid and closed her eyes as Liara directed the shower forward to rinse away the soap. She smiled when she blew the streaming water off her lips in a small cascade, and sighed with contentment when Liara laid her hands on her shoulders.

"What was that for?" Liara asked, the smile clear in her voice.

"You," Shepard replied as she turned and leaned in to lightly kiss Liara, lips pursing as she tried to stop smiling for it. She raised her hands to stroke the asari's upper arms, enjoying the sensation of water on the alien skin, almost like oil even without soap.

"Shepard…" Liara scolded with a smile as she noticed the hands begin to wander, and lightly slapped Shepard on the shoulder before giving her a peck on the cheek and reaching for the towel.

"Fine, fine… go, you gorgeous thing," Shepard said, only slightly disappointed at being shot down. She wasn't quite sure she would've been up for more herself… She closed her eyes again, and turned toward the wall to enjoy another couple minutes of warm water before following Liara out. She only let out a small gasp when the asari's palm smacked against her ass and gave it one more good grope before retreating behind the safety of the shower barrier.

When she finally did emerge from the shower compartment, vigorously toweling her hair—the only nice thing about it being short _again_ was that it dried quickly—she found Liara fully dressed at her terminal and beaming back at her, even forgoing her usual admonishment about walking around naked.

"Feron found Linesse!" Liara declared, pointing at some message on the HI that Shepard couldn't have hoped to see without her cybernetic aides—which she couldn't be bothered to use now, opting instead to focus on her happy bondmate. That smile never failed to melt her heart into a little puddle. "They're on Heshtok," she added as she turned to read further, brow furrowing slightly.

"Heshtok?" Shepard asked as she tossed her towel into the laundry bin and grabbed the new top and underwear that Liara had already laid out on the bed, quite sure she'd heard the name more than once but uncertain about where.

"The vorcha homeworld," Liara clarified, visibly deciding to set aside whatever concerns she may have had about the location. "But he says that they are safe and should be out of the system in a day or two."

Shepard wasn't quite as convinced about the drell's ability to stay out of trouble, as nice a guy as he was, but didn't say anything that could have caused Liara to worry… it _did_ sound like they should be okay, anyway. "That's great news, Lilo," she said with a smile instead. "Did you tell Aethyta yet?"

"I left her a message, she didn't answer when I tried," Liara replied, eyes flicking rapidly from side to side as she dove right into reading whatever other information Glyph had compiled for her in the few hours that she'd been off the network. Shepard was just about to mention that she could now help with Liara's work a little, too, when the asari looked back at her. "Speaking of parents, Hannah just sent a message saying she and Ka… Zoe would be ready for breakfast whenever we got up."

Shepard shook her head with a little smile as she wiggled into her underwear. "I'm just going to start calling her Ada Jean, and that's it."

Liara's mouth curled into a small smile. "I do wish she would finally settle for one," she said half-audibly, pushing herself upright and toggling all the HIs off before turning to Shepard with a disapproving look. "You are not even ready to go yet!"

Shepard didn't know what to say for a moment. "You're coming, no drawn-out argument needed to drag you off the computers?" she finally said, too happy to manage anything else.

Liara glanced back at her from under her lashes, head slightly hung and a guilty look on her face that broke Shepard's heart. "Well, yes… Feron and Kasumi are back online, and your mother is here, and we must go see Tali today, and—" She didn't have the chance to finish the statement before Shepard had walked up to her and cupped her face.

"I didn't mean it like that," Shepard said as she sought out Liara's eyes. _God, I'm such an asshole._ "I'm sorry, Liara. I know you gotta work, and I'm just so happy to have you to myself," she tried, still seeing the sadness in her lover. "I… fuck, it means everything to me that you'd do that." She reached to Liara with her mind, trying to pull her in, indescribably relieved when the asari joined with her without resistance, eagerly, and let Shepard try to show her how much it meant.

Liara looked up at her, smiling now through the fading remains of her guilt, eyes bright and without tears. "I love you," she said softly.

Shepard didn't answer. She just kissed her.

* * *

The bass assaulted Shepard's ears as soon as they'd walked into Kasumi's cabin, a slow, foreboding rhythm creating the background for the slightly nasal, epithet-laced story in spoken word. Both her mother and… Ada Jean leaned over a HI at the foot of the bed, nodding to the beat. The thief was clearly feeling better, her hips swaying to the music as the two watched something or other on the small projection.

"God, mom, I'd forgotten you and your hip-hop…" Shepard complained dramatically with a grin at the perpetrator. "It's almost worse than Liara's goth rock."

"_What?_" her mother blurted out with a disbelieving laughter as she turned to greet Shepard and Liara.

Shepard glanced at the awkwardly smiling Liara, shaking her head in mock seriousness. "She listens to, like, Cure, and Merciful Sisters— right, Sisters of Mercy," she corrected when prompted by the asari, "so she listens to this stuff, happily bopping and dancing to these depressing_-as-fuck_ songs because she can't understand the lyrics without the translator."

"But the music is happy and beautiful," Liara protested when she could get her voice heard amidst the laughter. "I have _read_ the texts, as well, and I find them interesting in their own way, but—" she gave up with a huff as _Ada Jean_'s laughter picked up again with renewed vigor.

"It's okay, Liara, I love you anyway," Shepard said with a grin as she pulled the asari closer by the waist. She did love the sight of the asari dancing. Usually it was just in place in her seat, but sometimes she danced for the sake of dancing, with or without Shepard. It was one of the few times that Liara truly forgot about everything else and let herself enjoy something, free and unselfconscious. Well, that, and… it was all Shepard could do to not lean in to nibble at the asari's neck at the thought.

"Ooh, ooh, you _gotta_ see something, Li!" Ada Jean suddenly yelped, her face screwed into an expression that was one of either unbearable cuteness or incredible pain. "Has she seen it? The tattoo?"

_Oh no…_

"What? Oh! No, I don't think so," Hannah said.

"Show her!"

Shepard was grimacing already, but her mother just smiled at her and turned back around, pulling off the hooded shirt she was wearing. "Come over here, Liara," she said, her invite slightly muffled by the thick fabric over her head.

"A tattoo?" Liara asked as she pulled away from Shepard. "I am beginning to think that _all_ humans have them."

"Well, many in the military do," Hannah agreed, finally liberated from her shirt and leaning forward, elbows on the desk, the tattoo on her left shoulder blade nicely exposed by the tank top she was wearing. "But this one's special. You know what it is?"

Liara leaned over the woman, cautiously at first until her curiosity got the best of her and she bent close, hand on Hannah's back for support. Shepard knew what the asari was looking at… an incredibly skillful portrait of a small child, a baby, really, all chubby cheeks and wispy hair. Two nubs of teeth showing in a gleeful grin. Beautifully scripted _2154 – 04 – 11_ underneath… _And, goddess, probably the __**other**__ date, too,_ she thought with a sudden flash of absolute terror at the thought of her mother having to have—

"Is this _you_?" Liara asked, making a face not unlike Ada Jean's over her shoulder. She seemed very close to cooing, in fact.

"Yes," Shepard grumbled apprehensively as she, too, walked over to her mother. Liara's reaction didn't sound like—

"Wasn't she adorable?" Ada Jean asked, grinning her face off.

"Still is," Liara said with a smile, examining the image closely—even forgetting herself and tracing it with her finger as Shepard laid her hand on the asari's back in turn.

The relief that washed over Shepard when she saw that the image was exactly as it had been the last time she had seen it was enough to choke her up for a moment, her legs weak and hand trembling against Liara. "You never…" she blurted out, unable to stop herself even when Liara looked up at her, puzzled.

Her mother also stirred, sitting up straight and turning around before she looked up into Shepard's eyes and cupped her cheek. "I never did," she said with a small and sad but unwavering smile.

Shepard squeezed her eyes shut and kissed her mother on the forehead, just resting against her for a moment before straightening back up. She shook her head at Liara's inquisitive, concerned look, and gave her a smile in return. _Later._

Ada Jean, clearly having caught on the significance even if she hadn't realized it before, rallied back to her earlier cheer—she really _was_ much better today—and gave Liara a hug around the waist. "Hannah showed me the picture they used for it! You should see the dress she wore!"

"Oh, man…" Shepard groaned at the memory, small chuckle escaping just as her mother laughed, too, muffled again by the shirt. "I'm so fucking grateful you only got my head inked on there, not that frilly goddamn princess costume you had forced me into."

"I don't think we need a picture to remind us what a princess you are, sweetie," Hannah said, reaching up to squeeze Shepard's cheeks.

"Ha ha," Shepard mumbled through her squished mouth.

"Alright, kids, I'm starving… can we go eat?" Ada Jean asked, perched on the bed and swinging her legs. "I don't know what took you so long to get up," she added with a grin that said she knew _exactly_ what it had been, "but we should get going if you two want to make it to see Tali."

"You're not coming?" Shepard asked, confused.

"No, two visitors, max," the thief replied. "Besides, I've got work to do, and I should go see Jack, and …and there's this other thing too," she trailed off uncharacteristically, almost as though she was flustered.

"What about mom?" Shepard asked, turning to Liara and her mother. "I mean, we can go later if it—"

"No," Liara said adamantly enough to cause Shepard to raise a brow. "We _must_ go today. And I think—"

"Yes, Admiral Raan was kind enough to offer me a tour of the _Tonbay_," Hannah interjected. "I've never seen a quarian ship from the inside before."

"Trust you to be all about the ships, mom," Shepard said with a wry grin, though she still couldn't quite understand why they had to go to Tali just today… not that she minded. Exchanging a few quick messages with her the day before had reminded Shepard just how much she missed her quarian little sister.

* * *

"I'm sure the doctors will remind you, but no longer than an hour," Shala'Raan said warmly as they stood in the narrow junction just outside the first of the decontamination airlocks and in the ship proper. "You can see her again later."

"Yes, Admi— Shala," Liara said, amplified through the suit's speakers. She was not quite sure why the quarians spoke to one another this way rather than using direct comms, but she supposed it might have been something to lessen the feeling of isolation that their ubiquitous environmental suits forced on them. Made them feel more normal. She could ask Tali, perhaps, but she was not certain whether it was a very polite question.

The quarian nodded, turning her head toward the corridor behind them as she noticed something. "Ah, here is your escort, Liara… it's not that we don't trust you," she added, smile clear in her voice and posture, "but it'll be much easier if they guide you through the decon—not to mention the ship itself. And I thought you might like to see him," she added almost playfully.

"Kal'Reegar!" Shepard exclaimed as she turned around to face the newcomer, recognizing the man remarkably quickly… It might have taken hearing his voice before Liara would have realized it was him, even though his suit probably was still the same one he'd had before.

"Good to see you again, Shepard… and you, Dr. T'Soni," the quarian said happily, looking at each of them in turn, even allowing Shepard to shake his hand firmly.

"You too, Reegar," Shepard replied, her grin clear behind the visor of her envirosuit. "This is my mother," she added, gesturing to Hannah, "Admiral Hannah Shepard."

"Yes, Hannah'Shepard vas Orizaba, I have heard of you. Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Reegar said with a polite nod.

"Very well, let's get going," Shala'Raan said, gesturing Hannah along the wider corridor. "Time is of the essence, I believe the saying goes."

Waving Hannah goodbye, they turned to follow Kal'Reegar through the winding pathways of the ship, Liara marveling at the sheer number of doorways, nooks, and cubbies the ship held. They saw quite a few patients and others, who Liara assumed to be their friends or relatives, all gathered in groups small and large, and even a few work crews doing repairs inside heavy barrier generators—two barriers in some cases. They clearly _were_ taking the risk of contamination very seriously, with at least one person monitoring the work outside the barriers at each site.

"Here we are," Kal'Reegar said when they arrived at the second decon inside the ship, the doorway leading into a smaller room just visible through the small glass pane in front. "I'll be out here. You… ah, if you can give her my greetings?"

"Why don't you greet her yourself?" Shepard asked, cocking her head as she looked at the quarian. "I thought that was why you were here."

"I… no. I can't really do that now… but if you could, I would appreciate it very much," he replied, fidgeting slightly.

Liara smiled to herself, glad that she was behind Kal'Reegar. She was not quite sure whether the gruff warrior realized just how clear his non-verbal communication was right at that moment.

"Suit yourself," Shepard said with a shrug, but flashing a smile nonetheless. "I'll make sure she gets your greetings."

Kal'Reegar was silent and still for a moment, but then nodded and tapped the decon door open and stepped aside for Liara and Shepard to enter. "Just toggle the green panel when you're ready for decon."

Liara had to admit, she was getting quite excited herself… she'd missed Tali terribly, anyway, and—

"Damn, I love Tali, but I think I might've gone home if there was one more of these fucking decons," Shepard said jokingly as she turned to Liara when the outer door hissed shut behind them, prompted by the asari's hand on her forearm.

"Well, I am glad you chose to stay," Liara replied, trying to sound serious. "This one will take a little longer, though, I must warn you."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, this one is very thorough," Liara said, struggling against the smile that was tugging at her lips. She wanted to drag this out just a little longer…

"Aw, hell," Shepard grumbled, turning around to look around the room. Liara thought she had missed it for a moment, before the woman's head suddenly snapped back to the two flat plastic-wrapped objects on the seats on the other side of the small space. "What're those for?" she asked even as she walked toward them.

"They are disposable antimicrobial clothes, Shepard."

Shepard took one more step before freezing in place, and very slowly turning back toward Liara, her expression comical enough that Liara wished her suit had a video recording device on it. "_No…_"

"Yes," Liara replied, smiling broadly now that Shepard could share her joy. It had not been easy to conceal the plan from her bondmate.

"No… fucking… way."

"Yes," Liara repeated with an emphatic nod, and reached up to detach her helmet to underline the point. "Now, remove your suit… we do not have that much time."

The decontamination was a blur. They quickly stripped out of their suits, helping eachother with the hard to remove parts, and Liara turned the decon cycle on from the VI panel while Shepard stowed their gear in a sealed compartment that opened into the wall. The sheer anticipation was enough that Liara could almost ignore her lover's nudity for the few minutes it took before the VI declared them as clean as they would ever be. With shaking hands, they both opened their clothing packs and pulled on the simple and light white shirts and pants.

Together they stood facing the door after having informed the VI that they were now ready to be let into the next room. The minute it took felt long even with Shepard's hand finding hers and clasping it tightly until the door split open from the middle, silent and swift. One moment, they were staring at the cold, metal wall… and the next it was Tali, her hand still up where she had touched to open that last barrier.

For a moment all three stood still. Then, Tali practically tackled Shepard, jumping straight into her lap and clamping down with a small whimper and a fierce intensity that was only broken for the moment it took the quarian to reach to Liara with one arm and pull her into the embrace, too. Liara closed her eyes and hugged back, face buried in the cloud of hair in all shades of gray.


	65. Chapter 64

**A/N: I debated how to handle quarians for a while. If you want to continue substituting your own headcanon for them, you're more than welcome to; it doesn't really affect the story in any way, after all. For me, however, Tali looks more or less like this: mar-er deviantart com/art/face01-290063213 (add dots where there are spaces in the URL). Male quarians are built very similar to females.**

**…And on another note, this chapter takes Unity to over 200 000 words. It's a huge deal to me, and I quite seriously couldn't have done it without your continued encouragement and help. The reviews, PMs, critiques, and various other comments elsewhere are incredibly significant to me.**

**This story is for ****_you_****. Thank you.**

* * *

Shepard held onto Tali for minutes, though the quarian would have stayed in her lap even if she had let go entirely, so tight was the grip of the arms around Shepard's shoulders and the legs around her waist, as though trying to make up for the years of the barrier between them in this short while, body against body, skin against skin, just… _there_.

None of them spoke for the longest time. The only sounds were her and Tali's quiet sniffles, and Liara's soothing, wordless murmur as the asari's embrace enveloped them both. When she gradually got a hold of herself and managed past the initial shock, Shepard lightly ran her hands across Tali's back and arms and neck, the soft muscle and hard bone of the feather-light body underneath something almost magical as it lived under her touch. The incredibly hot cheek against her neck, the sharp chin in her shoulder, the thick locks of wispy, almost translucent hair tickling her nose and cheek… all so very mundane and yet she felt as though she had just been given the gift of sight.

She felt Tali's legs cautiously relax even as _her_ hands, too, began to uncertainly feel their way around Shepard's shoulders encouraged by her example. She gently urged the quarian down, then, all too eager to get a good look at her beloved little sister even if it meant letting her go for just a moment. Almost as reluctantly did Tali finally plant her feet back on the ground, and push both Liara and Shepard a half an arm's length away, Liara once again gently grabbing around Shepard's waist.

Shepard couldn't help a laughter when Tali ever so cautiously lifted her hand to her face, the fingers hovering just millimeters above the skin. Trying to control herself when she noticed the girl flinch, she smiled broadly instead, and pressed the fingers onto her skin. "It's okay. Touch all you want."

Enjoying Tali's smile and the warm fingers lightly tracing her face and playing with her brows and hair, Shepard took the chance to look at her more closely. She had seen pictures of quarians, of course, and caught a glimpse of one or two dead or wounded ones during her adventures, but she couldn't quite believe how much of a difference being this close made… not to mention it being Tali. When she finally managed to wrest her eyes away from Tali's, the two orbs like luminescent opal or mother-of-pearl, she was drawn to the strange skin. Its three different grays seemed to suck in light quite unlike human or asari skin. From afar, the illusion was of an almost frightening, skeletal or mummified creature, no features but for a few sharp angles. From close, where the light was strong enough to allow her to see, the beautiful structure revealed itself better. Uncannily human-like even without the rarity of hair, only the distinct, sharp creases and ridges in the skin and the slightly different mouth and its folds really set the quarian apart.

"It feels so strange, Shepard," Tali said with a more confident smile, her mouth and cheeks moving just a little differently than a human's as she formed the words. "It's nothing like the sensory replicators in the suit."

"May I?" Liara asked, reaching forward but waiting for Tali's approval before lightly touching her fingertips to the patterned forehead.

Tali nodded to Liara, and in turn reached for Shepard's hand. She lifted it up and rotated it this way and that, running her long and surprisingly delicate fingers along the skin and nails, and curiously twisting the human fingers this way and that before depositing the hand on her cheek, inviting Shepard's touch.

Her skin, too, was a curious mix of the familiar in an entirely new, exhilarating context. Most of Tali's face, the darkest gray and the lighter pigmentation markings on it, was very smooth and soft, like a baby's. The ridges, on the other hand… they weren't harder, as such. They felt _denser_ but flexible and giving, almost like thick scar tissue. As Tali spoke, Shepard felt as though each might also be separately muscled. After a short detour over her lips and nose—which seemed hard as though made entirely of bone rather than cartilage—and the slightly terrifying number of empty cybernetic implant slots, jacks, and shunts embedded in her neck and scalp and… everywhere, Shepard couldn't hold back any longer, and pulled Tali back into her arms.

"How…?" she asked when she finally let go of Tali—if only to let her hug Liara instead.

"My idea," Tali said proudly as she disentangled herself from the asari and took both of them by the hand toward a large bed on one side of the room. "Not that it required that much intelligence. I was sick already, and was going to be pumped full of medication to help fight it off… so when I heard that you were both… that you were both alright, I thought…" she trailed off, an opalescent tear rolling down her cheek.

"Shh, it's alright, Tali," Shepard said, both she and Liara leaning in, their arms crossing against the quarian's back as they both tried to comfort her.

"I don't know what I would've done without you," Tali said, shoulders heaving as they carefully sat her down on the edge of the bed.

"Shh, we're here, you're here," Shepard tried again, lightly stroking the quarian's back.

"We do not know what we would do without _you_, Tali," Liara said, and leaned down to kiss Tali on the top of her head. "Fortunately, thank the Goddess, none of us had to find out."

"I'm sorry, I… this was supposed to be happy—" Tali started amidst sniffles.

"Hey… it is," Shepard said, squeezing the quarian tight and exchanging a look with Liara over her head. "It's okay. I couldn't have imagined a better, happier surprise… a few tears are allowed."

"Tali had the doctors do some math, and found that there was a small overlap period for the medication and the exposure healing," Liara said, catching on to Shepard's desire to move the discussion back to a less vulnerable topic. "There is a limit to how long they can keep the medication going without adverse effects—today was the last day before they have to drastically reduce your dosage, I believe?" she continued, receiving a nod from Tali. "So when the worst of the initial exposure was over, I arranged some of our bodily fluids delivered here for exposure in lieu of what she referred to as _linking suits_."

"There is something so wrong about you saying _bodily fluids_…" Shepard said with a shake of her head at the asari.

"What?" Liara asked, her confusion either genuine or very well-acted. "It is the correct term, is it not?"

"That's not what I meant, love," Shepard said, grinning slightly as she heard a strangled chuckle from Tali. "I'm glad you two came up with this half-baked idea even if it meant you were sick as a dog," she said, marveling at the quarian's ear as she did… she couldn't help the feeling that the ear lobe, such as it was, was the wrong way around. The flap of skin was attached with clearly very fine muscles at the front, leaving the opening toward the back. When Shepard spoke, however, she noticed with delight the normally slightly floppy lobe flattening against the skull, visibly tightening over the ear.

"Do _dog_s get sick a lot? I think I saw one in London, and it seemed quite healthy given the situation," Liara asked, interrupting Shepard's bewonderment.

"No, figure of speech," Shepard laughed. "And if you mean the one at the FOB, it was a _cat_."

"Oh."

Shepard saw a smile flicker on Tali's lips, and breathed a little easier herself. Her hand still gently trailing a soothing circle on the girl's shoulder, she took a moment to glance around. Something about the setting was nagging at her in the back of her brain.

"Is this a sexytime room, Tali?" she asked with a sudden leer as she properly took in the furnishings and realized that they were in a permanent clean room. She couldn't help herself.

"…Yes," Tali admitted sheepishly, much to Shepard and Liara's amusement. "I hope you don't mind—"

"Mind? I'd come see you at the bottom of a fucking ocean if that's what it took," Shepard said brightly, and hugged the quarian close again. "Having to block out some mental imagery of clanking faceplates is trivial.

"Although," she continued, studiously ignoring Liara's long-suffering sigh at her crassness, "maybe Kal'Reegar should've come in after all…"

"What?" Tali asked, head shooting up, eyes turning to the door even as she wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to cover herself up beyond her simple hospital garb.

"Yeah, he's outside there," Shepard said, jerking her thumb toward the door. "Said he couldn't come in, but wanted us to pass on his undying love and devotion."

"_What?_" Tali squeaked.

"Well, his exact words were _his greetings_, but I read between the lines."

"He does seem to care for you," Liara said, distracting herself by smoothing her tunic as she tried to sound serious despite being visibly close to bursting to laughter over Shepard's teasing. "He was the one who evacuated you from London, too."

"I know," Tali said, her expression inscrutable but her body losing its tension again. "Inan'Amirai told me, she's been taking care of me. It sounded like quite a rescue! They even had to put me into an emergency spare helmet…"

"He's actually _seen_ you?" Shepard asked, grinning broadly even as she lightly grabbed Tali by the chin and tilted her face toward herself. "Well, that settles it… who could ever resist this?"

Despite her best effort not to, Tali succumbed to grinning back. "I missed you," she said, hugging both Shepard and Liara to herself.

"We missed you too," Shepard murmured.

"Do you have any news of Jack?" Tali asked when she finally let go of them again.

"No, nothing new," Liara said with a reassuring smile, "but that is a good thing."

"I suppose," Tali agreed reluctantly, and turned to Liara. After a moment's hesitation, she ran her middle finger along the scar on the asari's cheek and crest. "This looks much bigger in person… why couldn't they heal it properly?"

"I… I did not want them to," Liara said, sounding almost embarrassed about the fact.

Tali watched her for a moment, all the while lightly tracing the scar and the skin next to it. "The scar means you survived," she finally said with a nod echoed by Liara.

"I think _being alive_ means you survived," Shepard stated a little more bluntly than she had meant to. "But with or without a scar, she's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she added, managing to modulate some dreaminess out of her voice despite the swell in her heart.

"You are so _cute_," Tali said with a laughter as she turned back to Shepard.

Shepard, smiling at Liara squeezing her arm behind Tali's back, was about to respond with mock indignation when the second door opened, and a fully suited quarian stepped into the room.

"Doctor?" Tali asked, swinging around surprised. "What is it?" she asked before introducing the newcomer. "This is Dr. Inan'Amirai."

"We'll have to cut your visit short," the doctor replied apologetically after politely nodding at both Liara and Shepard. "Your body is already starting to be stressed."

"I thought we would have an hour," Tali said plaintively. "I feel fine!"

"Yes, I'm sorry… I was too optimistic about your tolerance to two simultaneous externals."

"Is she alright?" Liara asked, concern clear in her voice.

"Oh, she'll be fine, I just don't want to stress her to the point where we need to continue the medication," the doctor replied, turning exaggeratedly toward Liara. "Artificial exposure isn't quite as good as the real thing… but she'll be much better next time, once she recovers from this."

"Only five or six more exposures, and I should be able to tolerate you almost permanently!" Tali declared happily, smiling at each of them in turn.

"I am unsure about that," Liara said seriously, drawing a worried gaze from Tali. "Shepard can be quite intolerable at times," she added with a sly smile.

Tali giggled as she flung herself around Liara's neck. "At least I have my comms no—" she started saying, but abruptly cut herself off.

"I guess _that_ explains what the contraption behind your bed is," Inan'Amirai said disapprovingly.

"You told me the comms had been re-established!" Liara said, shocked.

"I was so bored and anxious," Tali said, her shoulders slumping as she let go of Liara and fidgeted with her hands instead. "I… kind of tapped into the hull to amplify my signal," she explained, a little pride audible under the embarrassment at being caught.

Shepard just laughed heartily as she stood up. _That's my girl…_ Liara smiled. "I would have thought the admiralty board to have taken most of your time?" she asked as she, too, made to rise.

"I resigned," Tali said, ceasing her fidgeting. "I'm no admiral," she continued, defensively but with a determined edge. "I never really was, and I have even less of a place there now, with the geth… deactivated. In fact, I'm supposed to be able to take over Daro'Xen's research. Maybe I can do something to help," she added somberly. "Many of my people don't want to."

"You can finish your politics later," the doctor interjected, her voice brooking no disagreement.

Shepard didn't say anything, but she was glad Tali had resigned. The girl had seemed pretty miserable about the responsibility that came with it, and as good an admiral she might make later in life—or whatever the equivalent was when they settled back on Rannoch—she _was_ still very young. _Smart enough to recognize it, though,_ she thought with a smile. "Alright, we'll go… when can we see her next?" she asked, the words giving her an idea. "…And could you take a picture of us?"

"A… picture?" the doctor asked uncertainly. "You can visit her again in a few days, I'll let you know."

"Ooh, yes!" Tali exclaimed, pulling Shepard and Liara to her by the waist. "Quarians aren't big on pictures… not even video, really, although at least you can see the movement in those," she explained to Shepard before turning to instruct the doctor. "Just take a couple steps back, and use your omni for an image capture of the three of us!"

A few tries later, the doctor shared each of them an image of happiness and bright smiles, Tali comfortably snuggled between Shepard and Liara.

Shepard grinned just looking at it again. "I'm sending a copy to everyone!" she threatened.

Tali giggled, but nodded all the same. "Of course you will."

"Can I give a copy to Reegar, too? That should pretty much drive him over the edge…"

"Okay," Tali agreed with a shy smile after a moment's thought.

* * *

A short, happily teary while later Shepard and Liara stood in the small decon room as the door slid closed again. Shepard turned to Liara, to those welcoming sapphire eyes, the small smile playing on her lips. She brought her hand to the back of Liara's crest, and pulled her into a deep kiss.

"What?" Liara asked with a small giggle when she broke off before the wonderful ache in Shepard's heart turned into something more.

"I would be so lost without you, Liara," Shepard said hoarsely, unable to articulate how she felt any better. Liara understood… of course she did. She understood Shepard perfectly, like nobody ever had, or would.

Shepard let herself drift away on the wave of breathless joy that she felt when Liara beamed at her words and ducked in to kiss her again, softly, tenderly on her lips and once on both corners of her mouth.

"Where did you put our things?" Liara asked when she finally pulled away, hand still lingering on Shepard's jawline.

"Over here," Shepard said, content that she would again survive a few minutes without kisses. "I think you have to go through the VI to activate it," she added, and walked over to the storage wall while Liara found the correct toggle to retrieve their items.

Shepard had barely bent down to the quietly opening compartment, when she felt Liara's hands slide up the back of her thighs and lingering a moment on her ass before trailing over her hips and then upwards, circling around her sides and onto her stomach. Liara's hips pressed against her from behind even as the asari's hands cupped her breasts. With a suppressed moan, Shepard straightened up and leaned back against her lover. "Liara…"

"Mmh, I could not resist," Liara whispered into her ear. She dipped to kiss Shepard on the neck and then nipped at her lobe. "_Mine_," she said in a low growl, her fingers twirling a quick, maddening circle on Shepard's breasts before she let go. She smiled as she moved next to Shepard, hand possessively cupping the swell of her bondmate's hip for a moment before she crouched down to collect her things.

They managed to get their suits back on without Shepard begging Liara to take her right there and then, but only barely, each touch and glance from the asari causing the warm tugs deep inside grow until she almost ached… which is exactly what Liara had wanted, judging by her knowing, bemused look.

Only when Liara turned to open the door did Shepard finally manage to calm her breathing, the heady mix of love, lust, and frustration swirling within her slowly coming down to a manageable level. When the short exit decon was done and the door opened to reveal an expectant Kal'Reegar, she felt almost normal.

"How was Tali'Zorah?" the quarian inquired in what seemed a polite, soldierly manner as he fell into step with them, but Shepard heard the undertone clearly now.

"She was fine," she answered with Liara preoccupied checking her messages in the corner of her eye. "She actually had something she wanted to give you."

"What was it?" Reegar asked, still admirably restrained. It was only when he opened the file that Shepard touch-transferred to him that his discomfort became obvious. "Tali'Zorah… wanted _me_ to have this?" he asked hoarsely, his step faltering just perceptibly as though he'd almost stopped in place.

Shepard replied with a serious, curt nod.

{Shepard, Aria tried to call while we were with Tali,} Liara suddenly said through their private channel. {I assume she was trying to reach you… do you want to speak with her?}

Shepard hadn't noticed a call in her comm log, but she'd only glanced at it quickly. {Sure, it might be something about the Citadel,} she replied.

The comm request had barely gone out, when Aria's voice boomed into the channel. {_Where is she?_}

{Shepard is right here, Aria,} Liara said, clearly taken aback by Aria's brusqueness—not that it was particularly unexpected.

{What? No,} Aria spat out. {Where is _Linesse_? Fucking Aethyta won't tell me, insists that it's up to her to contact me! I know you know where she is, so just tell me.}

Unlike Kal'Reegar, Liara actually did stop in her tracks. Shepard turned around, taking in the horrified expression of her bondmate even as the realization dawned on her, too.

{I think you broke Liara,} Shepard said after two seconds of silence, and burst out laughing as she pulled Liara into a comforting hug.


	66. Chapter 65

The quiet hiss of the door behind her shook Karin from her reverie, the datapad in her hand all but forgotten as she'd just zoned out like she had so many times this last week… thank goodness it was becoming less frequent of late. She hated not being able to think, feeling like she wasn't in control of her faculties. It must simply have been the lingering neurological effects. After all, even her palsy hadn't _quite_ cleared out yet, flaring up a little more frequently than she would have liked. But it was better, she was getting better. Everyone was.

"Good morning, Karin," Traynor said brightly from the doorway, her cheer warming Karin's heart. The sharp clicks amidst the dragging shuffle of the younger woman's feet told her that she was wisely still using the canes for support when moving around—unlike a certain stubborn old doctor she knew—even though she'd been cleared out of bed days ago.

"Morning, Samantha," Karin replied without turning around. She did smile to herself, however. "Back from your PT already?" The entire crew, those who could take the stress, had been ordered to physical therapy almost as soon as they could stand up, something Karin had heartily endorsed. Although—

"Yes, it was nice…" Traynor replied. "We even had time to play basketball for a bit. You didn't come, again," she added with kind admonishment as she came to a stop next to Karin at the foot of the bed.

Karin had only gone twice herself, avoiding it for reasons that she couldn't quite explain herself. "I did not, you're right," she said, not wanting to contest the claim or come up with an excuse, and her eyes conveying as much when she looked over to Traynor.

"You should," the woman said earnestly. "It's good for you, and we'd all like for you to join us anyway," she continued, holding her gaze for a moment before turning back to look at Jeff. "Any news?" she asked hopefully.

"Jack's going to pull through," Karin replied with a small smile, recalling Liara's good news not long on the tail of the bad the previous night, but not whether she'd already told Traynor… probably not. Traynor hadn't really known the woman that well, anyway. Hearing about Jack being wounded now, after everything was supposed to be over, had been shocking to say the least… though Karin thought she should have known better. War never ended. One of her flock would _always_ need tending to for one reason or another. Still, though, it _had_ caught her completely off guard even with the alarm about the trouble down on the Citadel having gone out hours earlier.

She still wasn't quite sure what all that had been about, except that in a tried and true fashion, the response had been to shoot first and ask later. It was somewhat understandable, she supposed, given the war, but… to say that it chafed her was quite an understatement, and yet fairly accurate. She was complicit in the war machine herself—although, realistically, one doctor less would probably not grind the System Alliance to a halt.

"I know," Traynor said with a smile, "I saw it on the roster. I meant about him?" she asked, jerking her chin toward Jeff.

Karin harrumphed bemusedly. _Should have known,_ she thought, Liara's thoughtfulness still catching her by surprise. "Liara still keeps the roster up to date?"

"Of course," Traynor said as though the matter was self-evidently true. Karin hadn't thought Traynor to possess a particularly large sense of entitlement to explain it… perhaps she simply knew the asari better, knew that she would just because that's what she was like. Karin wasn't sure whether she wanted to address the issue, and didn't get the chance to as Traynor craned her neck and lifted her brows at Karin to remind her that she hadn't answered the actual question she'd been asked.

Karin turned back to Jeff herself, looking the poor boy over as if it would somehow magically help. The earlier stasis fields and other supports had been replaced by molded guards keeping him completely stationary, and some of the shunts and IV catheters were empty but not because he'd shown significant improvement; his body simply couldn't sustain the amount of medi-gel, catalysts, and medications it was subjected to. They had let the overflow run as long as they could, and had managed to get _some_ of the bone damage fixed, but they needed to take him into surgery soon, and the rest of his body needed a little time to be able to sustain it. Every day had been a precarious balancing act between the medication and lack thereof taxing his frail body in slightly different ways. Karin just hoped that the small amount of healing had been sufficient to carry him through this first round of surgeries… maybe then he would take larger strides. Maybe.

"There has been little change in his condition, I'm sad to say," she finally managed, clutching the datapad to her chest, knowing the figures there wouldn't have gotten any better in the ten minutes her attention had been elsewhere. Not worse either, though… it would've alerted her if any of the monitored stats had deteriorated.

Traynor watched the man quietly for a moment. "I hope he'll be alright," she said just as she did every day. Unsaid was the guilt of surviving if the person who had saved them didn't, which Karin knew very well… without Jeff, they'd all be dead.

_Less to worry about, then,_ Karin thought bitterly before shaking off the morbid thoughts. "I do too… I do too."

"Gabby is doing a little better," Traynor said, trying to cheer her up. Both of them, perhaps. "They're picking up more brain activity every day."

"That's good to hear," Karin said, feeling a little guilty about neglecting to check how the others were doing today. She'd have time… she couldn't really help that despite her best efforts, she felt attached enough to Jeff that she'd lost a bit of her objectivity when it came to him. He was, if not quite like her own child, at least almost like a nephew. A young, foolish, frail, insufferable, but brave nephew. Besides, aside from Gabby and him, everybody was recovering fairly well.

"Is…" Traynor started, falling silent for long enough for Karin to look over at her, and flick her brow inquisitively. "Is the cyborg rumor true?" she finally asked.

Karin sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. "It's true in the sense that something of the kind has been discussed," she said, her voice a little constricted. "I don't know how seriously. I think it's just a foolish, romantic notion spurred by _someone_ talking about EDI to whoever would listen," she said, leveling a meaningful look at Traynor.

The woman had the good sense to look embarrassed when she answered hesitantly. "I… I didn't think about it like that… I just thought it was cute."

"It was their business, if there even really _was_ an it," Karin answered a little harshly, knowing that Traynor _hadn't_ meant anything by it.

Perhaps it was just that Karin wasn't quite comfortable with the notion herself. She'd barely come to terms with thinking of EDI as a person… or maybe she truly hadn't, if she was honest with herself, but even then that chasm just seemed too wide. She hated herself for thinking it was 'unnatural', and she _wanted_ to feel otherwise, but still… And Jeff hadn't helped the situation any, completely shutting down whenever she'd tried to broach the subject in any way.

"Well, what have they discussed?" Traynor asked, encouraged by the kinder look Karin gave her by way of apology. "The doctors… What I heard sounded a little fantastic."

"That's because it probably was," Karin said dryly. "Both what you heard, and what they've talked about. If you _really_ must know," she continued after a sigh, "they've been discussing using Jeff as a _guinea pig_ for the direct neural interface with the people from… whatever that damned Binary Helix front is called. Being one with the ship, that sort of nonsense."

"You have to admit, it sounds like something Joker would—"

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't! But they're after a story to make money… they'll forgo all proper testing if it means they can get their names in with the brave, disabled pilot losing his physical limitations. Even better if the ship's a sentient being already! The headlines practically write themselves! You can be sure it will be over my dead body," she huffed when the world suddenly shifted.

Traynor's quick reflexes saved Karin from an embarrassing and possibly dangerous fall, the woman managing to drop her canes and catch Karin before she slumped down. "Are you alright?" Traynor asked, her frightened voice ringing strangely in Karin's ears.

"Help me sit, please…" she managed, and gladly let Traynor support her the few steps to a chair. She quickly brought up her vitals on her omni while the woman called for a doctor. Everything _seemed_ fine, she thought, but her eyes were blurry as she read the figures, unable to quite focus. Traynor kneeled down beside her, pulling at her wrist to review the numbers herself, for what little good it might do. "I'm fine," Karin insisted, feeling slightly better now that she'd sat down. She'd just gotten too worked up about Jeff, that was all. She still wasn't quite strong enough for her usual orneriness… she'd have to try to take it a little easier, she mused as she tried to smile reassuringly at Traynor.

* * *

Miranda checked the clasps of her belts the third and final time, finding solace in the simple routine as she always did. It cleared her head, let her concentrate on the mission ahead… _Mission, hah_, she thought with a scoff, a scoff undeserved. She wouldn't do herself any favors pretending that anything was ever completely without risk, especially not to make herself feel better about not being quite certain about her fitness yet. It was an actual mission, and while her wounds had healed for the most part, it had not been long and she hadn't really strained herself properly since being injured. She was certainly well enough for the minimal physical requirements of her medical post, and the few hours of yoga and the handful of times she'd made it to the treadmill gave her enough confidence to know that she _should_ be fine even if she needed to exert herself, but 'should' wasn't good enough, never had been. With a shallow sigh she rolled her shoulders to resettle her suit, and grabbed her pistol to stow it on her hip before striding out into the hallway. At least she had some backup.

"You ready?" Grunt asked, pushing himself off the corridor wall he'd been leaning against with a nudge of his shoulder. He was packing a full complement of very large weapons, and had switched back into full battle armor from the lighter garb he'd been wearing, even a helmet swinging behind his head by its security straps. Miranda wryly noted that she was probably the only person Shepard still hadn't goaded into wearing a helmet everywhere she went.

Having the krogan with her _did_ make her feel a little more confident. Whatever small blemishes her injuries had left on her abilities, Grunt would be able to make up for. To say that she'd been surprised by the concern Garrus had shown—if not vocalized—would have been quite an understatement. And he _hadn't_ said anything about it, so it wasn't that he didn't think she couldn't handle herself—and why would he have? He'd seen her do just that countless times. Jack being wounded had really shaken everybody up. Miranda had even considered letting Grunt go with Garrus after all, even though she knew full well that the turian was certainly capable of taking care of himself. That, or just tell him to hold back until she—and Grunt—could go with him.

"I'm ready," she said as she passed the krogan without stopping, expecting him to follow. She wasn't going to run this like a democracy, even if she _was_ glad to have him with her. He was an excellent soldier, and… it wasn't quite fair to say he was merely smarter than your average krogan. He was _actually_ smart, just a little predisposed toward violent solutions. She felt like she had a good enough handle on him to steer him away from that. Nothing like the ease with which _Shepard_ could, or even Liara, but good enough.

"Surprising," Grunt rumbled, his heavy footfalls pounding the floor just a step or two behind her. "You always took a stupidly long time to get ready. This is much better."

Miranda realized it had been a compliment only when she'd already turned to snap sarcastically back at him over her shoulder. "Thanks," she muttered instead, thinking she saw a ghost of what passed for a smile curl the krogan's lower lip.

"Where we going?" he asked when they rounded a corner, his voice disconcertingly close above her head. She'd still not gotten used to it.

"Chorban's lab was on Shalta," Miranda answered as she ordered the elevator for the shuttle bay. "So that's where we're going first… and no, there's probably not going to be any shooting," she added.

"I know," Grunt said, mostly—but not completely—hiding the lingering disappointment in his voice.

Miranda allowed herself a small smile. "You know probably better than any other krogan that violence isn't always an answer, Grunt, let alone the _best_ one," she said as they stepped into the elevator. "Although according to the few Citadel records I was able to get a hold of, Chorban also had a residence registered at the Crux Technologies staff building on Tayseri, too. The Ward with all the trouble," she clarified just in case. "I don't think it's significant, but if the lab yields nothing, we can try there instead" she added, not liking the prospect one bit. She might grouse about this milk run of a mission, but if she was honest, she didn't really feel much of an urge toward the dangerous. Not now.

"I don't understand why we need to talk to the bugs in the first place," Grunt grumbled, leaving Miranda unsure whether he'd listened at all. "Isn't it enough that they're _not_ hostile, and that they're still taking care of the Wards?"

…They _were_ still taking care of them, Miranda realized. Presumably, anyway. The Wards were still functioning, and the Keepers were essential in that process as far as anybody knew. And yet nobody had really made note of it. She had to admit that in the face of all the other problems, being able to talk to the re-pacified Keepers seemed a little trivial. She _was_ curious herself, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was just trying to distract herself from the real problem, Earth. That's where she should be, she thought as she so often had, recently… but, then, was she really distracting herself if she did think about it? Or was it that she actually _didn't care_ like she should have?

Shaking off the disconcerting and above all distracting thought, she focused back on their goal. "It's important to understand why they do what they do, Grunt, and whether they're truly sapient beings like us. Maybe they just communicate differently, like the rachni. Actually," she added as the elevator doors slid open, "I wonder if anyone's tried to have the rachni talk to them?"

"I don't think they'll be able to just because they look like bugs too," Grunt said curtly, and strode past her toward the shuttle.


	67. Chapter 66

{What? No,} Aria hissed into the channel, just as Liara was about to close it on her side and let Shepard talk to her instead. After the overtures Aria had made, Liara had been more amenable toward her, but there was no need to listen if Aria insisted on being abusive. {Where is _Linesse_? Fucking Aethyta won't tell me, insists that it's up to her to contact me!} she yelled. {I know you know where she is, so just tell me.}

Liara wished she had been more fortitudinous, but as soon as she realized what Aria had just said, she simply stopped for a moment, all thoughts lost. It was not until Shepard scooped her up into her arms that her brain started working again, passing through a series of mental images she would rather not have experienced and toward the detour of recalling that Linesse's name had come up in some context involving Liselle, the daughter of Aria that Liara had learned about when she had just established her own broker network. Finally, she arrived into the realization that she was by tradition and custom considered to be a relation to _Aria T'Loak_, now.

{I am glad you find this amusing,} Liara said to Shepard, who was still embracing her but shaking with laughter. When she craned her head to see in through Liara's face panel, she looked dangerously close to choking for lack of air, tears streaming down her cheeks.

{A… au…} Shepard started, but was reduced to giggles without being able to complete whatever it was she was trying to say. So great was the woman's amusement that Liara started to feel a tug in the corner of her mouth despite her indignation.

{Tell me where my fucking daughter is!} Aria yelled after another few seconds of silence but for Shepard's slowly dying laughter and gulps of air.

Liara was not quite sure about the situation, and treading on unfamiliar ground in any case. She feverishly called up data through her omni even as she hopefully managed to convey to Kal'Reegar that they were both fine, and not suffering from acute seizures of some type. {Aria, please…} she said as calmingly as she could. {Aethyta relayed you the information that Linesse was alive and well, but did not tell you how to get in contact with her?} she asked, leaving out the obvious part, and wondering how badly strained the relationship between mother and daughter might have been.

{Auntie… Aria…} Shepard managed to contribute between gleeful gasps.

Liara grinned despite herself, Shepard's mirth showing her initial shock for the overreaction that it had been. Aside from—_Goddess_—some parts she preferred not to think about… well, it was not so bad at all. Shocking, yes, and surprising that they had managed to hide it, but she supposed that Aria doing what she did, being in the business she was, this may have been her most closely guarded secret.

{I swear to all your gods, Shepard…} Aria started in a growl before turning her attention back to Liara. {Yes, I need to know where she is,} she said, sounding to Liara's surprise slightly more in control even if not quite conciliatory.

{Ohh…} Shepard broke in with a long, amused sigh, {I'm sorry, Aria, I wasn't laughing at you… just Liara, and this situation.}

{This is no laughing matter,} Aria said curtly, but distinctly calming down, even subdued. She likely was not used to losing her self-control quite so badly… perhaps she was regretting her display of vulnerability.

Liara still felt on thin ice. It seemed clear that her father, who surely knew something of the situation, was of the opinion that Linesse would not appreciate being contacted by Aria. Given the gravity of the situation, the rift must have been something serious. Aethyta had, after all, asked Liara to find them herself. On the other hand she could understand a mother's need to some degree, as atypical one as Aria may have been, having just witnessed it firsthand. That Aria had reacted so strongly spoke volumes, too… the war had changed many things. Feeling lost in a maze that she did not yet fully understand, Liara looked at Shepard.

{Listen, Aria,} Shepard said after wrapping her arm around Liara's shoulders and pulling her forward toward the docking bay on Kal'Reegar's heels, {I get it. Let me just say that I have an inkling of what this might be like for you,} she continued. She was trying to stay away from speaking in too intimate terms, Liara noted, even though she could easily have related her own experience, and speaking fast enough that Aria could not—or did not have to—respond to her words, {but if she doesn't want to talk to you, forcing your way isn't going to help. We can let her know that you want to talk to her. Or, hell, make a vid and we'll pass it on. Liara will _personally_ speak with her to make sure she really understands.}

{I can do that,} Liara replied earnestly, even nodding to emphasize her agreement despite Aria not being able to see her. Aria had not been particularly nice about the matter, and Liara did not know what had happened between the two. She could only guess at the discomfort it would cause to Linesse to have this thrust upon her, but she could not in good conscience allow Aria's plea—and that is what it was—to go completely ignored. Not _now_.

The channel was silent for a long time. Twice Liara thought she heard a change in the silence as though Aria was about to speak… but she did not. A few seconds after the second time she disconnected, leaving Liara and Shepard looking at each other.

* * *

Garrus leaned against the waist-high wall of the small terrace that acted as the mid-tower shuttle park of the high-end residential building they were on, about a hundred meters above what passed for the ground on the Wards. He wasn't particularly happy with the location, but given the apparently still-continuing attacks against air traffic, their C-Sec liaisons had suggested it as the rendezvous point. The building was located on the outskirts of the sectors where the heaviest gang activity had been reported, and he had to admit that as annoying as the trip down to street level would be—and how bad it would be as an escape route if they couldn't bring the shuttles down for evac—it was a little better protected from direct attacks. Still… he'd never liked heights that he wasn't shooting down from.

He squinted and put his hand up as a visor when the rays of the star flared above the horizon and flooded his eyes. Despite the welcome light and warmth, it felt… wrong. For all the years he'd spent on the Citadel, it had always been dusk on the Wards, the dim, sharp light of the Widow barely able to light the rooftops, let alone the streets nestled at the bottom of ravines of metal and glass. He had always liked it, the twilight alleys and the sea of artificial light in all colors of the spectrum. Like Omega, but more noir than just a shithole. Swanky in places… not in others. Now, trapped in orbit around the human homeworld, it was subject to its own nights and days for perhaps the first time in in its existence. That drove home the destruction and the losses more than anything. Not the absence of the omnipresent sibling Wards nor the Presidium, not even the ravaged, smoldering surface of Tayseri itself affected him quite the same as the gentle caress of sunlight slowly engulfing that selfsame surface.

He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the fiery orb, enjoying the warmth on his skin and plating… and, as he had every morning that he had seen for the past week, muttered a quiet mantra to connect himself to this place, to this star, wishing that the spirit of _this_ Sol would bestow him the ability to find his. He'd never held to the old beliefs, not in the abstract. There was strength to be found in one's comrades, even one's surroundings, but there wasn't anything mystical about it. This star, though… this star that blazed the very same orange as it came above the horizon as the color of his sister's tattoos?

He chuckled sadly at himself and shook his head as he leaned back over his rifle sitting on top of the wall, his fingers deftly going through the motions prepping the weapon almost on their own. Maybe the orange wasn't exactly the same and, sure, Solana's tattoos were only unlike the rest of the family's because they had moved before she had been born and she'd wanted to identify with their new home, but was there harm in hoping?

He had been growing more worried by the day. By her surreptitious words, it seemed that Liara had been able to access her network to some degree at least… and if neither she nor the Hierarchy had found any traces, it left quite a few unpleasant possibilities and woefully few good ones. It was true that neither Solana nor their father had come up on any casualty lists yet, so it was possible they were stranded somewhere, or were still in space out of comms reach, or even that entire systems were offline—like the few whose relays had suffered the fate of Charon. That's where his hopes lied, that they were stuck somewhere like the fleets had been stranded. It didn't matter if it took a few years to find them, as long as they were safe.

Wordlessly, he hefted his rifle, the reassuring weight in his hands helping to push away his concerns. With practiced, efficient movements he took aim at a building below on the opposite side to check out his scope and his visor integration. Satisfied that both were performing to his spec, he stowed away the rifle, and in the same smooth movement unstowed his pistol for a check-up, too.

"We're here," a melodic, flanged voice spoke somewhere behind him.

Garrus' heart leaped, but he realized that despite an eerie similarity, the voice didn't belong to his sister even before he had fully turned around and seen the owner's teal tattoos. His memories had just gotten the better of him. _Void take me, I'll think every female is her if I don't get some news soon,_ he swore as he took in the newcomers and tried to get his expression back under control. Three humans, two turians, and a salarian, evidently led by one of the turians, the speaker.

"Welcome to the apocalypse," the female continued in a bitter tone, signaling for the others to wait as she walked up to Garrus.

He managed a nod, noting with approval her experienced, easy gait, and the equally natural vigilant stances of the four others. He had the utmost respect for the skill of the asari commandos, but if he had to make a choice, it wouldn't even have been a contest. These five were the best of what C-Sec had to offer. They were _police_. Fortunately he didn't have to choose, he mused as he watched the four asari and Vega saunter toward the gathering from the shuttle. "Garrus Vakarian," he said, stowing his pistol and extending his arm.

"I know, General," the woman said with an enigmatic smile, and took his arm after a crisp salute. "Zar. Sometimes Lieutenant Sesta Zaranesc, C-Sec, but not today. Bailey sends his greetings."

Garrus allowed a small, pleased flick of his mandibles at the powerful, confident grip. "Understood, Zar. I think we can drop the _general_, too," he replied. "Stopped by the impound armory, I see?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the shoulder guard of the armor the woman was wearing, its hastily scrubbed Eclipse markings still recognizable, and taking the moment to look her over. Tall, slight build, but seasoned… probably around the same age as he was—she would have been in the military until she was 30, and even though a suitable military rank could put one on the fast track to C-Sec lieutenant, and even if you had served in the special forces like she undoubtedly had, you needed a few years to build up the kind of presence and awareness she clearly possessed. Observant, gold eyes looked at him unflinchingly from a face tattooed elaborately in the southern style—like the Councilor had been.

"Yeah. We're not exactly official," she said, the bitterness returning into her voice, "and as you may have heard, C-Sec uniforms have pretty much turned into practice targets for these bastards, anyway. So we got a little creative."

Garrus cast his eyes on the rest of the crew, seeing the same frustration and anger in each of them. He could understand it all too well… this last turn of events had shut down the military leadership and the Executor's will to intervene, just as they had grown more amenable toward sending down some real troop numbers—although Garrus had to admit that it would still have been a long mission to get the entire Ward pacified. "Any news about the bombs?"

"Nothing new," Zar said, releasing his arm, and jerking her head toward the wall to be out of earshot. "There's no way for us to verify it, not being spread as thin as we are… but given that there's something strange going on with the Keepers, and that the gangs are obviously up to _something_, and that the armories have been completely ransacked, and that this place only tenuously supports life and stays up in the air… yeah, I think it's a real risk."

"Just need somebody crazy enough to actually do it," Garrus said. If Shepard was right about it being Sederis… the asari actually might be. Victus had told him about the threat that the Executor had received a few hours earlier, that this… faction, whatever it was, would blow up the Citadel if there was a boarding or evacuation attempt, or if they went public with the threat. Garrus hadn't even told Shepard yet for fear of upsetting the woman. It wasn't as though there was much she could do, anyway. If she had been in shape, he would rather have gone alone with her than this crew of eleven and a gunship, but she wasn't, not by a long shot. Guilty as he'd felt about keeping this from her, she was better off recuperating with Liara. She'd done enough.

"Right," Zar agreed, eying Garrus coolly as he turned to her.

"And we still don't know what the point behind trying to keep everyone off the Ward is."

"Nope."

"The Primarch and the Executor want these explosives disabled," Garrus mused, leaning his elbows on the wall, "but even Sederis isn't crazy enough to blow herself up, is she?" he asked without really expecting an answer. "As insane as all this is, there's _some_ logic to it. She doesn't seem to want anything but control of the Ward."

"If she is, we've already lost this one," Zar said with little emotion in her surprisingly pleasant and even voice, eyes on his every time he glanced over.

Garrus nodded. "So if there are explosives, they're going to be dispersed over who knows how many locations across the life support and power generation facilities, probably elsewhere too. Being able to hit them all at once without a single one going off seems unlikely, and even one could be catastrophic," he said, leaving the thought unfinished to test the woman. She seemed competent and smart, but…

"So we want to hit her instead," Zar continued, unfazed. "She's got to have an escape plan of some kind if she really has the ability to destroy the station, and if she really means to do it… and if we cut that route off, it neutralizes her threat."

"I like the way you think, Zar," Garrus said with an approving flick, and got a grudging smile in return. "Do we have anything to go by to actually find the villain's lair?"

Zar raised a brow as she pushed off the wall, probably at his choice of words. "Not really, no. From what little we can gather, she's mostly with the Sixers, but they've cleared out from all of the locations we know of. But that's not saying much," she added.

"Nobody's talking?"

"I don't think we've caught more than a handful of them," Zar replied, sauntering back toward their assembled group, Garrus in tow. "Most know fuck-all, and the only one we think is anywhere higher up in the food chain isn't talking. Scared, not tough," she added as a clarification. "It seems like there are a few enforcers in the ranks below the top command, and the rest are just scared shitless."

Garrus grunted noncommittally, and took a moment to think the situation over as he came to a halt before the small squad. Zar rejoined the ranks, evidently glad to let him run the show despite her assertive move earlier.

He had never been the cerebral kind of a cop… but he had a good brain and a good hunch, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he had usually augmented those with cracking some heads. He wasn't _proud_ of it either, but it's who he had been… you couldn't change that. He liked to think that he was better than that, now, but this job seemed to need a fairly straightforward approach: sneak around, find Sixers, strike hard, make sure they can't alert anybody, and see what you can find out. Sure, there wasn't a countdown ticking away, but the longer they went in this stalemate, the likelier it was that somebody on one side was going to make a mistake and things would come to a head. And it just wasn't _right_. He needed to make this right, fast.

If the gangbangers were truly as scared as Zar made them out to be, it wouldn't have hurt to have a bit of intimidation of their own… he wished Grunt had come along, after all, but he did feel better knowing the krogan was there to back Miranda up. Garrus couldn't think of many situations the woman couldn't take care of by herself, but if something _did_ happen, he wanted the kid there to watch her back.

Maybe there were other incentives they could use instead of brute force.

"Alright," he addressed the all-veteran group, "we're going to make this up as we go along. Two groups of six, but we move together wherever possible. The shuttle can fit us all if necessary, but Lyssa is going to keep it up high to keep it safe and to provide whatever info she can get to us, until it's needed on the ground. First objective is to locate some intel, so we're going to try to find a midlevel player, or a safehouse, or something that will get us ahead. You," he continued, nodding toward the C-Sec contingent, "may find some useful gear in the shuttle. Military-grade, since we weren't sure what you would be bringing. Take what you can. We'll probably need it."


	68. Chapter 67

Garrus took a few slow, even breaths as he inched toward the corner of the low wall he was crouched behind, the side of his helmet and his shoulder guard scraping inaudibly against the porous, roughly hewn ornamental stone surface. He took a moment to slightly adjust the temperature inside his armor to rid himself of even the minimal fogging that his exhalation brought on the lower part of his visor, all the while cursing the fickle sun for the temperature fluctuations the Ward's overstressed life support systems were unable to counteract.

He stopped at the corner, back against the wall, his left hand on the floor for support and the right one balancing the weight of his rifle resting on his thighs. He took a quick glance over his right shoulder to ensure that the asari were ready, and properly concealed—though he needn't have worried. Irilin and Tai were both huddled against stretches of the selfsame wall a bit further up, carefully hidden from sight but prepared for action. Rilann, the medic, was just visible about a hundred meters further back, and Mii would be on the other side with Vega. Garrus resumed his cautious movement, leaning forward against his arm as he craned his head to peek around the corner. He was almost certain that the camouflage upgrades the asari had been kind enough to provide for the entire strike team would be sufficient to hide their thermal, electromagnetic, and mass effect signatures from whatever scanners their quarry may have been carrying—probably none, in reality, but he didn't want to chance it.

_They_ showed up like candles on Garrus' scanner, but he preferred a visual contact rather than relying solely on the crudely constructed thermal stick figures moving in the wireframe landscape that his visor painted over the real one. He needed eyes on the target even if it meant a small risk of exposing himself… and he wanted to check on Zar's team on the other side of the elevated walkway circling the plaza they had chosen as their ground. The C-Sec group had already shown itself capable enough, but with strict orders to avoid using comms until they were already exposed, he wanted to ensure everything was in order on the other side before they sprang the trap. With a pleased flick of his mandibles, he acknowledged the faint, directed shimmer from a tiny signal laser in Zar's hand. Turning his attention back on their prey, he watched quietly as the last of the nine shapes walked past his position and onto the brightly lit plaza proper, concentrating on keeping his breathing calm and verifying that the data in his combat HUD still showed everything under control. When the bait walked onto the plaza from the opposite end, he checked one last time that they had no unexpected company around, and waited.

They had spent the better part of the day—or several days if you went by the accursed sunrises and sunsets—in hiding, mostly all together but sometimes split up into smaller groups, and only observed. Life on the Ward had been surprisingly orderly… the few largest gangs were operating in an almost paramilitary style, and they seemed for the most part be leaving the civilians alone. Garrus had taken a moment to do a sweep over the various hospitals and evacuation centers, and they, too, had been operating as though nothing had happened. Many had even had C-Sec or military forces providing security, and they had been left alone as long as they didn't venture out into the gang territory. Food distribution had still been working, too, but the manufacture and recycling seemed to be somehow overseen by the Sixers.

Garrus had to admire the skill of the operation as the picture of the overall situation around the Ward had started to emerge from their observations and from what little info they found on the local nets. The gangs had used the confusion of the Keeper trouble to assert themselves, and further continued it a bit—probably to be able to get a hold on some strategic locations and resources. The strangest thing, the thing that most convinced him that there actually was someone pulling the strings, was that they hadn't overextended themselves, hadn't encroached _too_ far, too fast—especially where the civilians were concerned. There were large groups of troublemakers and looters harassing the population, still… but the Sixers in particular had been taking them out—but not too much, and not too obviously. Just enough to make people wonder where the police and the military had been, and why the few interventions had been by the neighborhood militias and the gangs. Enough to have gotten some of them to collaborate… But it had never been too clear a change, nor orderly. No, that would've raised suspicion.

He was glad they had taken the time to observe, because the Sixers and some of the other larger gangs had been operating with much more discipline than he had anticipated. They had roamed around their territories in smallish bands, on foot and by vehicle—not patrolling, gangs don't patrol—but kept in frequent contact with each other and presumably their bosses. They had mostly been using direct comms or relays they had left alone and knew were working, but in the few fights one of Garrus' group had seen, they had used a randomized channel pattern that was hard to predict ahead of time, which would have made it difficult to strike without risking a warning going out.

…And that's why two of Zar's team were down on the plaza, approaching the group of Sixers like a pair of over-eager, cocky vigilantes. Irilin had spotted the Sixers a little while earlier when they had parked their two shuttles a little ways from the plaza they now were on, and had followed them to what may have been some kind of a safe house a few blocks further away—or a warehouse, or maybe a Sand factory… that wasn't important. What had been important was that one of them had seemed to exude more authority than anyone they'd seen so far, enough to have gotten Irilin's attention. Sure enough, when the asari had called up the rest of the group, their facial recognition software had identified the turian as one of the Sixers' mid-level lieutenants. Of the rest, it hadn't been able to put a name to all, but every single one of them had that hard-to-pinpoint veteran criminal look.

_Suspected lieutenant_, Garrus amended wryly, thoughts returning to the days of red tape for a moment before he brought himself back into the present. He inched slightly forward again into a better position, now about twenty meters behind the band of criminals and fifteen meters above the plaza floor. He brought his rifle up and ready to aim, ensuring that all the settings were correct with one last look before continuing his fluid movement and taking a knee. From the corner of his eye, he saw Zar's shape similarly prepare with her assault rifle as he supported his elbow against his thigh, and took careful aim at his appointed target, the woman traveling last in the group. She was helmeted, but with ill-fitting armor.

"Well lookie what we have here!" the front man of the Sixers hollered when he saw that the bait pair didn't turn tail and flee at the first sight. "Goddamn hee-roes. Why don't you run along and we don't fucking kill you?" he taunted even as his comrades filed into a half-assed formation around him, unconcerned enough not to bother with looking for cover when they brought their weapons out—heavy assault rifles for the most part, a couple shotguns. The kingpin, safely tucked in the center, didn't even bother unstowing his.

Garrus had to admire the guts of the duo. Only about fifty meters from the enemy—who had made it as far as the center of the plaza before stopping—they held their ground for a moment longer to make it clear that they weren't going to back down… and that moment was just long enough. Barely audible even with his aural pickups already at max, Garrus heard one of the Sixers get on the comms. _"Two wannabe clowns on Raga plaza… we'll take them out."_

It took the cyberwarfare VI less than a tenth of a second to record the channel pattern in use and to target each for scrambling. Garrus liked to think that the speaker had had just enough time to realize that the channel had died before he did.

The VI sent a single beep as the signal that the comms were disabled, Garrus' finger gently squeezing down on the trigger before he'd consciously heard it. He managed the recoil directly backwards, the aiming visual almost unchanged on his HUD, displaying his target's neck exploding in a cloud of crimson exactly on the moment the reassuring bark of the Widow made it to his ears.

He tried to take in the rest of the field as he slid his view toward the next target, careful not to expose himself too much… though that was unlikely to be a concern. Rilann's massive stasis field wrenched the kingpin into a painful-looking splay almost at the same time as Garrus found his next target, and fire from all directions bore down on the Sixers who hadn't even had the time to panic yet.

He let his breath out just as his small correction to the side was complete and an inaudible mechanical click told him the next round was chambered even before the graphic overlay did, and focused on the unhelmeted face of the lower-ranked one of the two turian Sixers in that brief moment before he would need to inhale. He noted with some interest the Racunian facial tattoos before squeezing off and vaporizing them along with the rest of the head, the body flung back like a rag doll by the hit.

Zar, Irilin, and the two decoys were peppering the rest of the targets with assault rifle fire, overloading what little shields they may have had and making them easy pickings for the four rifles between the rest. Garrus' third shot was an unnecessary precaution, the man already going down from five or six of Zar's bullets ripping through his armor even before his chest exploded from the force of the Widow's projectile. Consummate professionals, the fire died immediately when the last of the Sixers fell, the erstwhile decoys already rushing toward the pile of corpses to disable the comms of any wounded, and to get whatever data they could out of their omnitools and other equipment.

Garrus let his muzzle tilt down as he flipped his comms back on and quickly surveyed the plaza. {Everyone okay?} he asked as he verified that all threats had been neutralized and there were no outsiders on or around the plaza. One by one, the team stood up from their firing spots. He hadn't suspected that the few shots that the Sixers had managed to get off had injured anybody in the few seconds it had taken to mow them down, but felt better when everyone checked in, anyway. {Rilann, how're you holding up?}

The asari turned her head toward him, but he couldn't see her expression. {I can keep it up for maybe half a minute more,} she replied, voice obviously strained.

{Alright, hang tight. Irilin, Mii,} he said, gesturing for the two to head down, {take out his comms and tie him up. Vega, start heading down there too. Zar, you cover this exit with Tai in case somebody over there heard, and the rest of you keep an eye on the other side,} he added before finally straightening up himself.

{Aye-aye,} Zar replied with an amused tinge, but repositioned herself so that she'd have a better view of the direction the Sixers had entered the plaza from.

The two asari ran toward the railing almost simultaneously, both gracefully jumping over and gently levitating themselves down before sprinting for the faintly flickering sphere of biotic energy in the center. Vega headed down toward a ramp a little further away, shaking his head with likely the same bemused disbelief that Garrus himself felt as he unstowed his assault rifle with his free hand. He set the weapon down on the wall for the moment it took him to get his rifle compacted and stowed on his back, wishing not for the first time that he too had been stuffed full of cybernetic augmentations to help offset the weight of the weapon. With another look at the fortunately still empty scanners, he grabbed the Vindicator and headed for Rilann and the sloping ramp that would take him down to the plaza.

{Ready? I have to let him go…}

{We're ready,} Irilin answered cheerfully.

Rilann slumped unsteadily against the railing just as Garrus got to her, but she waved off his help. "I'm fine, thanks."

"Okay. Come on, we're heading down," Garrus said with a grin. In the corner of his eye, he saw that Irilin hadn't taken any chances with their prisoner, and had simply shocked him with electricity to knock him out. She and Mii had already crouched down to the disable the rest of his comms, while the two C-Sec decoys went through the rest.

{Any of the others still alive?} Garrus asked as he turned to follow Rilann down the ramp.

{No,} came the curt answer.

{Okay,} Garrus replied, quietly glad that they didn't need to worry about logistics for the wounded. He didn't have anything against taking these bastards down hard, but prisoners were a different matter. He would've had to risk bringing the shuttle down to pick them up. This was easier. {Everything look clear, Zar?}

{Yes,} the woman confirmed.

{Everybody head down, then,} Garrus instructed. He knew they didn't have that much time. There was no telling whether these guys were expected somewhere at some particular time, nor whether someone else might be coming here. Their best chance was to try to mask the events, and this location was almost perfect for it… it wasn't out of the realm of possibility, after all, that the 'wannabes' might have had some heavier weaponry.

"Good thing you didn't have some cockamamie idea about trying to just make these guys disappear," Zar said with an impressed click of her throat when she sauntered down and past the kill zone. "We'd be scrubbing brains off the floor for a week."

"I'm not sure about this either," Garrus replied honestly. It was a fairly stupid plan, but they didn't have time for anything better, and they needed all the time they could get to figure out what was going on. If one thing was sure, it was that things on the Wards were only going to get worse. Whoever was running the show was far, far too dangerous. He could only hope that the Sixers weren't particularly concerned about this guy and wouldn't dig too deeply into things when they finally did figure out his crew was missing. "We all ready to go?" he asked, glancing around the assembled. Vega and Irilin had taken their prisoner to carry between the two of them, and they nodded along with the rest.

They made for the other side of the plaza, and took cover behind the buildings lining the street leading to the shuttle park—all except Iri. With practiced moves, the asari took a knee and lifted the surface-to-air launcher to her shoulder, targeting laser seeking out the densest concentration of bodies on the plaza.


	69. Chapter 68

"Ms. Xian?"

Ada Jean took a second to center herself before she turned to the voice, a distinguished-looking asari in a doctor's garb. She was lightly bouncing a datapad against the front of her thighs and looking back at Ada Jean, head tilted inquisitively. "Yes?"

The doctor let go of the pad with her right hand as she walked over to clasp Ada Jean's forearm. "Dr. Werana Olohi. I'll be primarily responsible for her care," she said, gesturing over to the white box within which Jack was imprisoned, hand still holding the datapad.

"Nice to meet you," Ada Jean replied politely, in turn giving the asari's forearm a squeeze before letting go of it. "Any news?" she asked, turning back toward her unconscious friend—but not quite all the way, so as to invite the doctor to join her at her side. "I didn't see anything in the readings there," she added, nodding toward the status panel embedded in the side wall off the machine.

The asari picked up on the hint and took another two steps to stand next to her. "Nothing alarming," she answered. "We have mainly been able to adjust our expectations slightly, but there are no dramatic changes from yesterday. I do not expect any, but rest assured I will let you know if there's something to know."

Ada Jean glanced at the doctor, and found her with a serious but kind expression matching her words. "That's good to hear," she said with a nod, though the small pit of fear in her stomach stubbornly refused to dissolve. It'd likely take Jack being awake, just as it had with Shepard. _She'll be fine,_ she told herself, and looked upon the woman's serene features. "I take it you were able to come up with some kind of a plan for her treatment, then?"

"We did, yes," the doctor said, bringing up her datapad to interface with the machinery or to simply check up on something, perhaps. "We convened earlier today, a few of the doctors here and two of yours. I was brought in to oversee everything and since it looks like there won't be a flood of new patients from the Citadel, she can stay here. Your doctors will consult as necessary."

"I'm glad you're taking the risk seriously," Ada Jean said before she could stop herself.

If the asari felt slighted, she didn't show it. "Of course. We wouldn't have doubted you in the first place, and Dr. Lawson was kind enough to arrange for some data on the patient's abilities to be sent over. I was duly impressed by the files."

"You work with biotics a lot then, Dr. Olohi?" Ada Jean asked kindly, trying to make up for her earlier transgression with her tone. Why was she so irritable and catty lately?

The doctor nodded absently, eyes on the datapad as she walked between Ada Jean and the prone Jack. "Yes. My main specialties are psychology and xenopsychology but the medical doctorate was my first degree, and I've worked in the field ever since. So, fortunately for your friend, I'm uniquely suited to help in this particular case," she said matter-of-factly, no hint of arrogance in her voice or expression as she leaned down to look at Jack.

Ada Jean smiled slightly, feeling comforted by the asari's self-assurance. She'd been around the galaxy quite a bit herself, but still found guessing asari ages as difficult as it had ever been. You could tell the younger maidens and the older matriarchs, usually, but even Liara was almost in that impossible-to-tell group of older maidens, matrons, and younger matriarchs that you had to mostly guess at by their demeanor rather than any physical clues. Dr. Olohi was definitely a member of that club… Ada Jean had not seen many matriarchs as doctors in her limited experience, so if she had to guess, the asari might have been toward the end of her matron years—which was strange in itself, since very few of them seemed to be in working life. It didn't seem like something you'd ask about, though, so she decided to just be glad that the doctor brought with her centuries of experience and yet wasn't quite as stuck in her ways as matriarchs tended to be.

"Given the circumstances, we felt it best to compensate for the damage by using fully synthetic components," the asari continued when Ada Jean didn't say anything.

"That won't be—"

"No, you're right, it would be best to combine with regrown and reconstructed wherever possible," the asari said, anticipating the objection. She straightened up and looked back at Ada Jean. "We can go in and replace things later… but given her rather unique profile, it's best to fix her up and bring her back to consciousness sooner rather than later. Then we can better prepare her for the upcoming work, both physically and mentally."

"I'd like to see you try get her on your couch," Ada Jean said with a small grin at the mental image.

The asari looked nonplussed. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"A joke. Our psychiatry has traditionally been a bit different from what you're used to," Ada Jean clarified with a smile.

"Ah, yes," the doctor replied, mirroring the smile. "Quite crude—but by necessity, of course. The various ways you had to devise to try to understand someone's thinking without being able to Meld… quite impressive, really," she continued appreciatively. "And very useful as source material for me, naturally, both as historical interest and in guidance for treating the human mental landscape. Most of the other species have long forgone the therapy aspects profession in favor of asari mental health services for obvious reasons. Your thriving psychotherapy ecology was fascinating."

"I'm sure it was," Ada Jean agreed, glad for the moment's distraction that the asari's obvious enthusiasm had granted her. "So, you'd say two weeks before she can be brought back?" she asked hopefully.

"If all goes well," the doctor replied with an inconclusive shrug, but hastened to amend the statement because of what must have been very obvious concern on Ada Jean's face. "As I said, we have stabilized her to the point that the risks aren't very high. She does, however, need to recover between procedures, so it's hard to predict exactly."

"Okay," Ada Jean said quietly, unable to quite stop the melancholy creeping back in. She'd felt much better earlier, with Hannah, and then Shepard and Liara, and then Feron before she'd boarded for the _Gray Dawn_. The memory of the drell quite obviously enjoying his current situation brought a small smile back on her lips. Perhaps she just needed company… she still wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. She'd always been perfectly fine by herself, but now that she'd let people in, she didn't feel quite so self-sufficient. Not that she'd trade her friends for her old equilibrium, but she mourned the loss of her independence nevertheless.

For her faith in the superiority of the Meld, the doctor certainly didn't seem untrained in the arts of simpler psychology when she gave Ada Jean an appraising look, and lightly laid her hand on her shoulder. "The nurse said you'd already been here for two hours. Why don't you go get something to eat, or go be with your friends. I heard there was quite the crowd here yesterday. We'll probably have Ms. Nought undergo some procedures tomorrow, but you can see her if you come by early."

"You're probably right," Ada Jean admitted after a moment's thought. She did have something else to do, too, though despite thinking about it constantly, she'd been avoiding it if she was honest with herself—

"Oh, I almost forgot…" the asari said as she let go, interrupting Ada Jean's thought. "Your friend Dr. T'Soni contacted my bondmate about the state of human cybernetic limbs a few days ago. You don't forget it when a galactic heroine calls you," she added with a smile as she noted Ada Jean's raised eyebrows. "Or your bondmate, in this case. Anyway, seeing you I'm going to venture a guess that it may have been in relation to you, and not some other human acquaintance?"

"I… yes," Ada Jean said, a little uncertain of what the asari was after. "I had them just do this temporary strutting and wait to see if I could get full functionality restored when we're out of this mess."

"Right. But the thing is, it will never be quite the same," the doctor said bluntly, trying to soften the words with her expression. "That's how she explains it. My bondmate, I mean. She's one of the best cybernetic surgeons in all the Republics," she clarified with pride. "You can actually achieve the same functionality—even better in some cases—and you could probably become a professional dancer again with hard practice, but it's not the _same_. For regular people, it's just fine but for someone like you, or a surgeon, someone with such control over their bodies, even the smallest differences can be very unsettling."

Ada Jean just nodded. The asari was describing her apprehension exactly… but, then, maybe she really should just give it up?

"I can't tell you what to do," the doctor said. "I know it's a huge thing to consider and I just wanted to tell you that I'd be happy to talk to you about it. Just talk, if you prefer. Have you on my couch, as it were," she added with a kindly smile.

"Thanks, doc," Ada Jean said with a small smile of her own. "I'll think about it."

"Very well, just let me know. Now," the asari said apologetically, "I have a staff meeting. I won't be here tomorrow morning since the procedures will probably take all afternoon and evening, but I'll see you the day after if you come by. I'll give you my contact details if you need to get a hold of me."

It wasn't until she stood in the decon room that Ada Jean's thoughts went back to the 'other thing' that had preoccupied her all day. She'd promised she'd come see Hilla again, and she'd meant it, although she couldn't quite say why. The asari had been pretty clearly coming on to her. It certainly wasn't the first time, but unlike the others, Hilla didn't seem the type to proposition more or less every passing human… and despite the asari's rather feminine qualities, Ada Jean couldn't deny she'd felt _some_ kind of a connection with her. Maybe it had just been her vulnerability in that moment, the adrenaline… or maybe a budding friendship, or somehow the stark contrast between the asari's kind, caring side, and the cheeky professionalism she'd shown on the ground. But was it fair toward Hilla if the asari truly felt something, and Ada Jean couldn't begin to define or guess whether she herself did?

It had taken her a long time, but she did feel she was finally ready to move on… more than ready. She had been feeling the small tugs of the need for companionship recently, for love. Was it so wrong to wish for that? So wrong to see if she could find it in the intriguing asari, even if it wasn't to be?

She shook her head when the door slid open, almost bumping into a pair of doctors as she stepped out and into the hallway. She flashed an apologetic smile, and stood there for a moment before deciding she'd honor her promise and heading for the room Hilla had been in the previous night, happy for the brief walk to clear her mind.

Her hand hovered on the door panel for a brief moment of hesitation before she touched her hand on it. The door slid open without a sound but for the faintest swoosh of moving air. She probably shouldn't have been surprised to see Hilla up and about but there the asari was, clad in informal fatigues and laboriously stowing the intact pieces of her hardsuit into a field pack with her single good hand.

"Let me help you with that," Ada Jean said, almost sprinting from the doorway.

Hilla turned around to look over her shoulder, surprise writ almost as large as it had been when she'd woken up. A shy smile lit up her face as she turned, making for quite a lovely sight, Ada Jean had to admit as she stopped in front of the asari. "Hi," Hilla said, hand unconsciously brushing along her waist to adjust her top. "I wasn't sure you…"

"Would come back after being hit on by a pretty asari maiden?" Ada Jean filled in, holding back a smile. She'd never been shy, and she wasn't going to start now. As fun as a bit of teasing and the sport of pursuit might be, she felt best to simply lay it out. The pursuit could come later, when they both knew where they stood.

The flush that crept on the commando's cheeks was quite adorable. "Yeah," she muttered before finding a little more confidence through her embarrassment, "I'm really sorry, it wasn't very professional—"

Ada Jean let herself smile, trying to assuage the asari. "But you meant it, though?" she asked, interrupting the apology.

Hilla seemed almost taken aback by the bluntness, but recovered into a smile of her own as she backed up against the bed and sat down on the edge—bringing her much closer to level with Ada Jean, who'd barely come up to the asari's shoulder with both of them standing. "I… yes. I did. You…" she started, but trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish whatever she'd meant to say.

Ada Jean took the moment to sort out her own thoughts, eyes resting on the slender form before her, the light, almost pastel blue skin and its silvery markings piquing her interest and the inquisitive, hopeful, silver eyes holding her gaze. She felt… something. Something still stirred within her, though it wasn't quite that familiar tingle. But there was something. "You're an asari. You're very much like a human woman," she said finally, trying to get through her preface without giving the wrong impression. "And I'm into men. Never been attracted to women. …But," she continued quickly when she saw Hilla's face fall at her words, "I feel _something_, here with you."

Ada Jean's heart stirred at the hesitant smile returning to Hilla's lips. "You do?" the asari asked, hands gripping the mattress lightly.

Ada Jean nodded, smiling back before her expression became more serious again. "We probably have to take it slow, and I can't promise it'll work out, and I don't want you to get hurt, but there's something about you that draws me in. I want to know more about you," she said, trying to keep her voice even, eyes still on Hilla's. "If you can accept this, and still want to see if it goes anywhere… I do too." She smiled, surprised how nervous she'd gotten.

Hilla was still for a few seconds, head ever so slightly tilted and eyes never leaving hers. She nodded, and made a sound that may have been meant a _yes_. She didn't quite seem to know what to do with herself. She looked like she wanted to say something, or to stand up, or maybe reach out, but couldn't.

"I like good food and expensive wines," Ada Jean said more confidently again, her smile masking the relief she felt. "And Blasto."

Hilla laughed then, a rich, throaty laughter that Ada Jean couldn't help but grin at. "I think I see where you're going," the asari said, her tension evaporating.

"I hear Kithoi's in shape. Make the arrangements and I'll be there," Ada Jean added.

"It's a date," Hilla said, smiling at her as she slid off the bed, a little of the earlier bravado back in her demeanor.

Ada Jean nonchalantly jerked her chin toward the commando's mostly still unpacked gear, smiling coyly. "Now, let's get you packed up and back to the _Ascension_. Between the two of us we have two good arms. You _have_ been released, right? I'm not aiding and abetting an escape?"

Hilla grinned at her as she made room at her side and shoved the field pack a bit toward the center so they could both reach it. "Yeah, I've been signed out. And thanks… it turns out I need two arms for this job. Who knew?"

"What'd the doctors say?" Ada Jean asked, still smiling but a bit of belated concern creeping into her voice. _What if it had been just a little to the side? She wouldn't be here at my side, grinning, full of life and excitement…_

"One week off duty, another week light duty," Hilla said, her smile changing slightly, turning more reassuring as she picked up on the subtle change of tone and expression. "I'll be good as new."

"Good," Ada Jean replied, smiling to shake off the gloomier thoughts. "You do realize that since you're so spritely, I'm going to expect that you spend all that extra time on trying to come up with ways to sweep me off my feet, right?"

Hilla gave her a sidelong glance, weighing the question a moment before realizing that Ada Jean had just been joking. She grinned wider as she handed over one of her gauntlets.

"You think I'm joking, don't you," Ada Jean muttered, eyes on the packing. She let her smile belie the words, however, knowing that the asari didn't know her that well yet… and found her thoughts venturing to a time when Hilla _would_ know her that well.

"Have you heard anything about Iri and the others?" Hilla asked, breaking Ada Jean's reverie with the note of worry in her voice in turn. "They said they were going on a hush-hush thing."

Ada Jean shook her head, taking the time to seek out the asari's eyes. "No, I haven't," she said, trying to sound as reassuring as she could, "but in this case, that should be good news. We'd hear if something went wrong."

"Yeah, I guess so," Hilla agreed.


	70. Chapter 69

They'd arrived back at the hangar decon airlocks a while before the two admirals had finished the tour of the _Tonbay_. Shepard had shooed the resisting Kal'Reegar off in the vague hope that the man would actually buck the hell up and go talk to Tali or at least write some fucking poetry or something, but by all the signs she'd figured that the process might take a while. Liara had nudged her when she'd thought her renewed laughter had still been about Aria, but Shepard had actually just taken her metaphoric thought too far and burst out laughing at the image of Reegar taking off his helmet and turning out to be a teddy bear. Fortunately only after the quarian had already been gone for a moment—she wouldn't have wanted to undermine his confidence any further… he was a good guy, after all. Maybe even good enough for Tali, she'd thought with a wry smile. Woe unto him who wouldn't live up to the expectations she set for any would-be suitor for _her_ little sister… and Liara's, and Garrus', and Wrex's, she'd thought, at that point evidently alarming Liara with her manic grin.

In truth, she'd struggled not to titter again when she'd tried to reassure her still-discombobulated bondmate, but at least the asari had seemed to have gotten over the worst of her shock. Shepard's suggestion to call Aethyta had still been met with an indignant huff, though, so she'd resolved to have a talk about it later in the evening instead. She had managed to coax a laughter out of Liara, too, as she'd related her plans for Reegar's gauntlet, and caused raised brows when her mother and Shala'Raan had arrived a short while later.

Shepard had just sat back almost the entire shuttle flight back to the _Tiber_, happily listening to her mother and Liara chat about the _remarkable_ ingenuity of the quarians where it came to constructing, retrofitting, and organizing their ships. Shepard didn't bother interrupting much—her mother could talk about the finer details of ships and shipboard operations for hours just by herself, let alone with someone as willingly curious about everything as Liara. Through the segue of realizing that her mother still hadn't seen the _Normandy_ in person, only virtually, Shepard had felt a pang of guilt that _she_ had yet to go see her crew—or the ship—save for exchanging quick messages with Chakwas and Traynor. Tomorrow.

They had made a short detour at the armory to drop off their envirosuits before coming over to eat—and in Shepard's case, requisitioned some new gear. It was funny how much better just pulling on the familiar battle dress uniform had made her feel, be as it may that she really shouldn't have been using it, even without the rank insignia as she was. The dress blues were a different matter… those were still okay, even though she wasn't officially Alliance any more. If her wardrobe on the _Normandy_ wasn't in shape, she'd have to order some gear to replace it… say what you will of Cerberus, but they certainly knew how to dress you. Even the Spectre gear hadn't been as nice. And in either case, she'd have to have new armor fitted. They doctors had saved what they could of the suit she'd worn to the battle but after her injuries and the doctors cutting her out of it, there _might_ have been just enough remaining to put on display next to the pieces Liara had kept from the last time. Shuddering the thought away, she did make a note to ask Liara before ordering anything… it'd be just like her to already have taken care of it.

A few junior officers stepped into the officer's mess as she was musing her armor situation. To her awkward amusement they clearly started debating whether to come over when they spotted her, in the end very politely going for shy waves and salutes instead when they saw her mother and Liara join her at the table. She flashed the young men and women a grateful smile and waved back even as she reached across the table for Liara's hand.

"I'll need both hands to eat, Shepard," Liara said with a playful smile and an accompanying light kick at her toes under the table, but clasped hers nonetheless, the light, rolling waves of her bondmate's soothing presence washing over Shepard as they touched.

"You've quite the fan base, babykins," her mother remarked quietly after giving a polite nod of her own to the younger officers, and flashing a knowing grin at the two of them holding hands. "Though I should've known, the way they've been coming at _me_. Which reminds me, I fear I may be facing a mutiny if I don't bring you aboard the _Orizaba_ at some point."

Shepard smiled back. "Maaybe," she teased, reluctantly giving up Liara's hand in favor of grabbing the utensils and tucking in herself, quite happy with Liara's shin resting against hers. She had to admit to herself that she hadn't quite realized how popular she might be. She wasn't above acknowledging that she did like the attention… but only up to a point, of course. There had been quite a bit of interest in the morning and when they'd gotten back on the ship, but it hadn't been too bad. Just like the small group earlier, most were very polite and understanding, and didn't crowd her—or Liara, thank the Goddess for that. Shepard was more concerned about the civilians, but fortunately she probably wouldn't have to deal with them for a little while still. "No, of course I will. Even if they don't make me tour every damn ship in the galaxy," she muttered with a happy sidelong glance at her mother.

Hannah frowned at her mock-seriously, and chewed on a forkful of egg before speaking again. "It'd mean a lot to them, especially the marine contingents who couldn't be there on the ground. Although," she added with a disgusted shake of her head, "apparently some idiots on the fleet channels have been _concerned_ that people will forget the role of the fleets and lionize the ground forces."

"That's… well, yeah, that's idiotic," Shepard said, her indignant huff trailing off into a lame refrain. "All sacrifices dirtside would've been pointless if the fleets hadn't held."

"And the other way around," her mother added.

"How was the battle in space fought?" Liara asked between spoonfuls of miso, appearing genuinely curious. Shepard had to suppress a grin. Liara was playing her mother like a fiddle… and impressively enough completely unwittingly, if she was any judge. "We did not get much of a picture of it down on the ground, and I have not had the time to familiarize myself with the reconstructions since then," the asari added apologetically.

Shepard listened intently as her mother painted a vivid picture of the main events of the fleet battles, a terrible but fascinating tale, and something that was still somewhat of an unknown for Shepard, too. Despite only the cursory mandated fleet ops training Shepard had undergone, her mother had always had the talent of making her understand the complex interactions in the four-dimensional space that made up a space battle—four dimensions because with the distances involved, time actually started to play a significant role. This had actually been quite close-fought, Hannah explained, with the fighting spreading in an enormous sphere—or blob, really—around Earth, reaching from the orbit of Mercury on one side all the way past Jupiter on the other, and almost in a similar radius all around. The fighting had been densest a bit away from Earth, both sides wanting to shelter the planet the best they could, both for their own reasons.

While the ground troop transports had maneuvered from one direction, and the Crucible escort—making up the bulk of the force—from another, various other battle groups of myriad affiliations had entered at intervals and different speeds to stagger them, trying to draw off as much of the Reaper forces as they could with various feints, attacks, counterattacks, and just plain suicide runs… all to support the escort's attempt to get the Crucible docked—in the end successfully, but the price had been high and there had been several points at which only the incredible skill of individual captains and their crews, or blind luck had kept the vastly outgunned allied forces in the fight. Even with her mother's masterful recounting the true scale of the battle was difficult to comprehend, but Liara seemed satisfied that she'd at least understood the basic progression and Shepard, too, had a vague idea of what all had taken place. There'd probably be innumerable reconstructions of the fighting for decades to come, though, if she ever needed to get into it in more detail and her mother got tired of trying to explain it to her half-wit offspring.

"I have an all new appreciation for the overall strategy involved," Liara said with admiration after a moment's silence they all shared. Even Hannah seemed quiet, perhaps talking it out having given her a new appreciation of it all, too. "It is a shame so many of its architects and executors never saw it through."

"Yeah," Shepard agreed in a low voice. "Here's to Hackett and all the rest," she said, toasting with her tumbler of water, her mother and Liara raising their glasses in silence.

Liara pushed her tray to the side when the somberness had dissipated a little, and made to stand up. "I apologize, I have to step outside for a moment to check up on my data feeds," she said mostly to Hannah.

"Oh, that's quite alright. We'll be here."

Liara smiled at the both of them and pushed herself up. Steadying herself on the edge of the table she brought her right hand up and lightly touched her index and middle finger onto her lips. She reached over the table to deposit the kiss on Shepard's forehead before turning and twirling her head this way and that before deciding to go sit at one of the soundproofed compartments, browsing her omni even before she'd gone two steps.

With a bemused shake of her head, Shepard lifted herself just enough to turn her chair toward her mother a bit better, grabbing her plate up in her hand as she did. Looking at her mother over the plate, she noticed her equally amused expression faltering a little, showing concern instead. "What is it, mom?" Shepard asked, mouth still full of bacon or very good imitation thereof.

"Well, about—" her mother started, leaning her elbow on the table and resting her head on her hand as she was wont to do. A chime from both of their comms paused whatever she was about to say, however. "Hrm. It's Bajic," she said, looking up at Shepard.

"Yeah, me too," Shepard said, the name flashing up on her visual just at the same time. She set the plate back down and flicked the connection on just as her mother did. {Shepard.}

{Commander! Good to hear from you,} the admiral at the other end said cheerfully. {Sounds like you're recovering well, and by the simultaneity of the connections I would presume that you've found some time for your mother as well.}

{Yes, I'm here, Alina,} Hannah said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms and legs.

{It's Spectre still, Admiral,} Shepard said kindly but intently, recalling the promise she'd made to Liara in the very first hours she'd been up.

{Yes, indeed…} Bajic agreed, sounding a little put-out. {I should… ah, here. Lidanya?}

{Alina. Commander Shepard?} the vaguely familiar, melodic and authoritative voice of the asari matriarch asked.

{Spectre, Matriarch Lidanya. This is a surprise,} Shepard said, stalling for a little time despite knowing perfectly well that the matriarch had taken the reins in the latter part of the battle and had held them ever since.

{Spectre, of course,} the matriarch agreed amicably. {Well, I do not see a point in avoiding the topic, then. We need— we would _like_ for you to come in for a debriefing. Nothing formal,} she added quickly before Shepard had a chance to protest, {just the military command. You may have much relevant information to the current situation.}

{I'm sure I can make some time for you, Matriarch,} Shepard said, glancing at her mother for mental support. {But not today. I am aware of the various things going on, and I don't believe there's anything I may know that can't wait a day or two,} she continued, trying to stave off the inevitable objection.

The channel was quiet for a moment. {I understand. If you could clear a few hours… let's say three? If you can give us three hours tomorrow, that would be more than fine. A few photos too for the initial PR. Internal staff, you don't need to deal with the media quite yet.}

{Unless something comes up,} Shepard said, nodding to herself, {I can do that.} This was better than she'd hoped… which left her a little concerned.

{Good, good,} Bajic interjected, sounding pleased. Whether it was genuine, Shepard couldn't tell. {I understand you're not directly responsible to anyone but the Council, so we're glad that you're accommodating us while still in recovery.}

Lidanya jumped back in before Shepard had a chance to respond. {There is not much of a Council at this time, as you may know,} she continued her earlier approach. It was transparent, but perhaps she just didn't care. With Liara having told her of the meeting she'd attended, Shepard could see where this was going a mile away. {…Although they are working toward reforming it now, to re-establish the civilian leadership. Our people are reaching a consensus around Matriarch Irissa, Councilor Tevos' sister, and the turian hierarchs probably aren't far from agreeing which one of them will be selected.}

_A mile away_, Shepard thought, taking a moment to glance over her shoulder at Liara, finding comfort in the vague outline of her bondmate visible behind the soundproof wall. The thing of it was that Lidanya was exactly right… time was of the essence if she knew anything about politics… although given that she'd thought that they would never even _try_ to get the Council expanded, that might not be much. {Sounds great. What about the others?} she asked bluntly.

{Valern's whereabouts are unknown,} Bajic said in turn, {but you're probably aware of the situation with the salarians. There's no way to know whether something's happened to him or whether he's willingly staying away.}

{And the others?} Shepard asked pointedly.

{I am certain you understand that while technically the new asari and turian Councilors could expel the salarians or consider Valern absent and then vote in the new members, this _will_ require more political will than that,} Lidanya replied. {We _have_ been trying to ensure that the other species are able to submit their candidates when the time comes—and the krogan, the quarians, the volus, the elcor, the hanar and the drell, they have all set things in motion. I do not believe we will have much in the way of resistance from them, so the problem will be the convincing the asari, humans, and turians. And this is where we need you, Spectre,} the matriarch finished with a surprisingly humble note.

{I know,} Shepard grumbled. {Fuck… fine. I know. We'll talk about it tomorrow,} she continued, more a statement than an offer or request.

{Very well,} Lidanya said, obviously satisfied. Shepard couldn't quite figure out what the matriarch's angle to this was. Hell, maybe she even believed that it was the right thing to do, who knew? {We will see you tomorrow. Enjoy your day,} the matriarch said, disconnecting from the channel.

{Thank you, Spectre,} Bajic echoed. {Until tomorrow.}

"Goddamnit, I was really hoping that it wouldn't be quite this fast," Shepard growled as she disconnected and pushed back in her chair.

"I know, sweetie," her mother said, looking over at her, "but it does sound like they're serious about it. Are you sure…" she continued, trailing off.

"Sure about what?" Shepard asked, brow raised.

"Well, maybe you should rest a bit after yesterday?"

Shepard looked up at her mother, and leaned over to gently pat her knee when she saw the concern in her eyes. "I'm okay, mom," she said reassuringly—although she had to admit that she didn't quite feel sure about it herself despite Liara and Miranda's assurances.

Her mother seemed dubious still, reaching to lightly stroke Shepard's cheek with her fingers. "What happened?"

Shepard didn't get the chance to answer before she felt a sudden flash of dread. _Liara._ Twisting around, she saw Liara come striding out of the small compartment and, despite the asari's admirable outward composure, immediately registered that something was wrong. "Li, what is it?"

Liara sat down heavily, nervously rubbing her forehead even as Shepard shot up and rounded the table to kneel down next to her bondmate.

"Li?" she asked again, looking up at the asari.

"Lilani was entered into the casualty report as Presumed Dead a few hours ago," Liara said in a tight voice. "The report just came through the asari channels. Lilani is my half-sister," she added, noting Hannah's worried expression.

"Oh, fuck, Li… I'm sorry…" Shepard said, immediately focusing to try to pull Liara into herself.

"I have to talk to my father," Liara said intently even as she let herself fall into Shepard, her mind a confused jumble of concern and uncertainty. _I am alright, Shepard._

"I'm so sorry, Liara," Hannah said, shooting up in her chair. "If it came through the asari channels, Aethyta will surely have—" she started, unable to finish the statement before Liara's comm chimed.

Liara quickly tapped her interface to patch Shepard in, and then answered. {Father? I am so sorry, I just heard—} she started before being interrupted in turn.

{Where are you?} Aethyta demanded gruffly. {I need to get to your comms to Thessia immediately.}

{We are here on the _Tiber_, father,} Liara started, trying to sound soothing to calm the distraught matriarch, {but I fear that it will not do any good to contact them… I am truly sorry, but it is very unlikely that—}

{No!} Aethyta nearly shouted before her voice cracked in apology. {No, I'm sorry, I don't mean… I need the connection.}

{Wh-}

{The kids. The kids _weren't_ on the list! That's how they know!}


	71. Chapter 70

Miranda stopped at the corner, and held out an arm to halt the krogan behind her. {Scavengers, as I thought.}

They'd seen quite a few looter shuttles already, and several bands of suited characters wandering about the place since they'd set down on Shalta. The authorities did have a perimeter set up around what was left of the destroyed Wards—likely to never be anything but relics of the war, maybe museums—but as far as she could tell by observation and the rumors she'd heard, they were satisfied checking that _somebody_ in each ship had been a resident of one of them… which wasn't exactly a small group of people. Some shuttles were surely ferrying evacuees to retrieve their belongings, maybe even the majority, but that left quite a few groups of people who were only too happy to loot whatever the fleeing and the dead had left behind. She was a little taken aback by the visceral loathing she felt for these… grave robbers. She almost felt that even those who had lived here should have left the place alone—but then again, here _she_ was, poking and prodding where she had never belonged herself.

The looting seemed quite disorganized, and the larger gangs and merc bands were conspicuously absent, likely preoccupied with whatever was going on on the two surviving Wards. _And now with Garrus, too,_ she thought with a small smile as she used the camera in her omni to peek behind the corner. This was the first group of people she and Grunt hadn't been able to avoid… nor did they look like they'd be clearing out any time soon, making waiting them out an unappealing choice. They were certainly amateurs… might even have been actual residents. They were looking around nervously, sure, and they were armed, but that might be caution and self-defense. In other circumstances the plasma torch would have been… well, 'suspicious' wasn't quite the right word, but given the situation it seemed sensible enough an item to take along with you—the Ward had no power, and the electronics or the physical doors could have been damaged badly enough that using the emergency power inlet wouldn't have been enough to get the door back operational. Unlike modern construction, the Citadel's designers hadn't enforced the paradigm of always defaulting to the safer state—in this case, unlocking—with a power interruption. Still, only a very thoughtful resident would have brought a plasma torch with them… or one who had already been here once and found themselves unable to enter. Didn't have to be a looter.

Slightly irritated by the difficulty of determining how they should approach the small group, she glanced up over her shoulder and found Grunt just where she'd felt him despite the lack of atmosphere and gravity, and the minimal lighting the cold, bluish emergency light strips provided. She knew the krogan had the same visual she did on the inside surface of her helmet—they'd linked their tactical views earlier—but the krogan just shrugged at her and unstowed his shotguns. Either way, they would have to go past to get to the lab in the next floor. They'd already tried the direct approach but both routes had been blocked by debris… this way should get them past the obstructions cutting the lab off from other routes—although she had to admit, the damage on that floor had made her slightly nervous even though the weak density scanner she had embedded in her hardsuit did indicate that the collapsed parts weren't but a few meters deep on each side.

She probably _was_ overthinking it. The group ahead posed no credible threat, and on the off-chance they were honest citizens… well, they probably wouldn't be permanently traumatized by the experience. She activated her combat shields and pulled her pistol away from its slot at her lower back, its operational data already transferred into her HUD instead of using its built-in display. She quickly gestured instructions for Grunt to move over to the corner opposite and to activate his lighting array. It was quite unnecessary given their UV/thermal visual mode, but it might throw the possible hostiles off especially if their equipment was as low-grade as it looked. …And, even though she'd never admit it, she quite preferred actual light to the enhanced view, as clear and crisp as it was. {Go.}

Grunt sprinted off as gracefully and quickly as only a krogan in maglocks running up onto a wall and from there to the ceiling could—or technically it was actually the floor, since _she_ was on what had been the ceiling. The fivesome, on the other hand, were standing around the door on the wall it had been on. And if her internal compass was correct, it was actually the remaining unoccupied wall that was pointing 'down' toward Earth. She'd acknowledged long ago that zero-G combat was not one of her strongest suits… that standard was of course quite high, but she'd still have preferred gravity. In this case, the disorientation would work to their advantage, however. From the corner of her eye she saw Grunt twist around in his comically slow run as he hit the correct spot in the corner, which gave her the go-ahead to move into firing position herself. The potentia of her biotics already rippled along her hardsuit when she flared her lights on just as Grunt's blazed to life, too.

Like so many deers in headlights—maybe she'd have a chance to see one on Earth now, she mused—the five stopped in the middle of what they were doing, their scanners probably finally picking Miranda and Grunt up now. They seemed even less threatening brightly illuminated, the two faces she could see already contorted into an expression of fear. {Put your weapons away, and identify yourselves and your business here,} she instructed on a broadcast channel—directed, and only powerful enough to cover this stretch of hallway to reduce their exposure to other possible groups of marauders.

{Who are you?} one of the would-be burglars asked on the response channel Miranda had indicated, his voice quite obviously marking him as the turian shape behind the others, the one holding the plasma torch. Neither he nor any of the others made any move to raise their weapons, however.

{Insert dramatic line here,} Grunt said, completely deadpan and without exaggerating the already deep and deeply threatening rumble of his voice. {Just do as she says.}

As Miranda struggled to keep her aim steady instead of laughing out loud, the five exchanged looks, throwing nervous glances toward the harriers who they could see were in a far superior position to theirs. Rarely were even seasoned warriors unfazed by a krogan in the enemy ranks, but these guys—though _that one_ may have been female—were clearly very close to simply fleeing on the spot. Miranda was about to offer them the option to just turning tail without further ado, when the turian spoke again.

{Or what? It's none of—} he asked, the frightened tremble in his lower register curving Miranda's lips into a pleased smile.

{Or my friend here will try open that door with your head, and probably fail,} she offered. They didn't really have the time to play around with these people for too long.

{Can I?} Grunt asked as he leaned out from behind the corner, far enough to be properly seen and probably genuinely enthusiastic about the prospect. The looters seemed to think he had meant it, too, judging by the increase in nervous fidgeting.

One of the three salarians in the group moved slightly to the side, palms upturned. {Please, calm. I am Rarys. This is my office,} he said, and followed it with quick introductions of the four others. The lone human of the group was also male, judging by the name, and was introduced as security along with the turian. {We three perform research here. Equipment has been lost, but could maybe retrieve our data, start over elsewhere,} he continued in a clipped staccato as he gestured toward the two other salarians and then the doorway.

His two research partners relaxed visibly as he spoke, their demeanor betraying the common civilian misconception that everything would turn out well if you just told the truth. Miranda had half a mind to disabuse them of the notion so that the lesson didn't come in a harsher form, but settled for being satisfied that the quintet might actually have a legitimate claim to the premises—not that it really should have mattered if they weren't going to cause trouble either way. The two security people—wearing matching armor now that she looked closer—weren't quite as at ease, yet, but neither showed any outward signs that would have contradicted Rarys' version of their reason for being here.

{Look,} the salarian interjected before Miranda could advance the situation, and slowly and deliberately toggled something on from his omni… that something almost instantly revealed to be a battery attached to the inlet. How'd she missed it? The door hummed to life, even a few rather cliché sparks cascading from somewhere within a rend above the doorway. Within moments, the lock panel appeared along with dim lighting around the doorway and, when the salarian touched on it, whirred into the open state. The door, however, didn't open any visible amount. {Jammed! Need to burn through.}

{Fine,} Miranda agreed. She quickly tapped a message to Grunt, telling him to stand down but to stay ready in case of trouble. The krogan shut off his lights and relaxed slightly even as she herself stood up—still behind the cover of the corner. {It's your lab or you're convincing enough that you've earned it,} she continued, checking the surroundings for any possible threats. {We're just passing through anyway.}

{Well, wait,} the turian asked, still clearly concerned—and possibly simply trying to earn back a bit of his security credibility. He waved his weapon vaguely at his side but his manner was non-threatening enough that Miranda ignored it. {How do we know you aren't going to jump us as soon as we let our guard down?}

{You don't,} she stated simply as she slipped around the corner, and left for the mercs figure out the unsaid fact that if she and Grunt indeed were going to attack, there was nothing the five of them could have done about it even at as much of a full readiness as they could possibly have mustered. She lowered her pistol to her side, her reaction time more than quick enough to counter any threat from this group. She let the sharpest edge of her biotics die down, too, enjoying the feeling of the ebbing power.

Grunt's head hung upside down at about the height of her chest as she wove her way through the debris toward the small group, the krogan happily clomping along in the ceiling. The floor. _Her_ ceiling. In other circumstances it might have been an amusing sight to see the two of them so interleaved from the perspective of the rescue team, two people walking toward you on the walls on each side. Finding it more convenient to deal with people face to face, Miranda rounded onto the erstwhile wall that the quintet was standing on, Grunt following suit and falling into step with her for the short remaining distance.

Rarys had taken a few steps in front of his crew, and Miranda came to a halt just a little closer to him than would have been considered polite. She kept her face blank now that he could see her, fixing him with her gaze but for a moment when she spared disinterested glances at his colleagues and the two mercs. {Have you worked here long?} she asked, observing his reaction intently. Perhaps they could get something useful out of this unnecessary delay.

{A… a few years now,} the salarian replied hesitantly, nervousness returning to his expression. {I told you, this _is_ our—}

{Did you know another salarian who had a lab in the next floor… next floor down?} Miranda asked, disregarding Rarys' assurances that they had legitimate claim to the place. {Chorban Rabal. Looks like this,} she added, lifting her arm and activating the non-tactical HI to pull up a small projection of the dark-skinned salarian from her omni.

Rarys shook his head, but shifted aside slightly to let his colleagues see the image too. {Isn't that the paranoid man? The one who always warned you about _them_ watching you. In the elevator?} the younger one—if she was any judge—asked uncertainly.

{Is it?} Rarys asked, puzzled. {Maybe correct. Yes, I think it is,} he said after a moment's thought, his expression brightening into a smile when he looked back at Miranda. {I think it is. Saw him occasionally in the hallway or restaurant or elevator… always with theories about how the station was trying to kill everyone. How _it_ was watching our every move… Although,} he continued, his expression souring, {I suppose he was not wrong.}

{Hadn't seen him in months before the attack, though,} the younger colleague interjected over Rarys' shoulder, eagerness to please clear in his eyes. {Rumor in the cafeteria was that he finally snapped, tried to storm the Presidium life support facilities. Went to prison, asylum, or something?}

{That is what I heard also,} the third salarian offered.

Miranda glanced from one to the other, emotion carefully kept out of her expression. The information she'd been able to find about the man had been very sketchy with essentially all of the Citadel's data stores destroyed. Whatever backups there were had been stored out of the system and were extremely laborious to get access to… The description of the paranoia the salarians had given would have fit Chorban's circumstances fairly well. It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear, but chances that they'd have found the man himself had been astronomically slim to begin with. {Nobody took over his lab after he went away?} she probed, trying to gauge whether the trio knew more than they were letting on.

{Don't think so. No memory of anyone moving in at least, usually notice that,} Rarys replied, glancing back at the others for support. {Everything started falling apart shortly after… probably nobody had time to think about it.}

_"Seems about right,"_ Grunt typed to her over their private channel, congruent with her own thoughts. _"Let's just go,"_ he added after the briefest pause.

Miranda couldn't argue with that… at least the short stop hadn't been a complete waste of time. She knew where to look for records of Chorban next, if it came to that. She _had_ searched through some C-Sec files for him already, but another, more focused pass might yield some results. {Thank you. Best of luck with your door,} she said politely, favoring Rarys with a small smile and a nod as she turned and leaped toward the hallway floor. Landing gracefully, she took a few slow steps before she felt the krogan's presence behind her again, and then sped up as much as she could, restricted as she was by the jerky functionality of the maglocks. It might have been simpler to just float and use jets, but apart from some sections that _required_ jetting, she found the controls and possible dangers with debris more hassle than it was worth.

{That's it?} the turian asked behind her, confused.

Miranda halted her movement for long enough to turn her head back over to the small group and gave a small shrug, just enough to be noticeable in her hardsuit. Grunt hadn't even bothered that much, the krogan overtaking her and taking a few bounding steps that propelled him into the staircase area opening from the left-hand wall. Like most construction on the Citadel, the staircase was an open, airy space. At the moment that was a slight disadvantage, with staircases blocking the way along the walls and making them have to either jet down the middle or navigate the stairs themselves. As she got closer to the central shaft of the stairwell, the amount of debris floating in the air—metal, glass, stone, sand, dust, organic materials—clearly ruled out the former option. She peered down into the shaft where sunlight flooded everything, reflecting off the fine dust in the air and forcing her visor to darken to almost opaque before she could see the enormous gaping tear in the side of the building.

It was at least ten meters in diameter and somewhat elongated toward one side, the metal supports around the impact having bent like straws… no heat damage that she could detect, so likely not a Reaper slug. Probably not a slug at all, now that she looked at it closely. Something had come through there, and judging by the angle of the hole, had continued somewhere a little below her. _Of course it will have struck right into Chorban's lab. There will be a neat little lab-sized hole in the building when we get there._

{Coming?} Grunt's bark rang in her ears, and it took her a moment to spot the krogan, already halfway down the staircase. He'd stopped by her and shoved the debris aside to make her a nice, mostly clean corridor to walk through.

With rising apprehension she made her slow way down the stairs. The enormous rend she saw when she turned the corner of the stairs was only to be expected. Most of the landing before them was gone, Grunt standing at the bottom of the stairs ending in a perhaps a meter-wide strip of floor left on the very side of the room. For a moment, she wasn't sure how the thing could even hold up, but it did seem that the structure was stable enough in zero-G that they might be able to actually navigate through the landing and onto the floor proper.

Not that there was much of a floor. True to her prediction, all she could see from this vantage was an enormous cavity cutting the floor and the one below in half, what looked like the remains of an Oculus deeply embedded into crushed and crumpled remnants of the structures that had once been in its path. The lab was supposed to be right next to the staircase, but when she checked the map to make sure all the ceiling-walking hadn't confused her compass, it did seem that the damage was mostly confined to the other side. Perhaps luck was with them, after all.

{Looks like there's a lip that we can land on over there,} Grunt said, pointing toward where the hallway should have been located, arm and fingers bent to indicate curvature.

Miranda stepped closer to the krogan and peered out even as she tried to see if her mapping programs could make sense of the damage. There did indeed seem to be a small jut of the hallway extending into the chasm they were on the brink of, and the rectangular shape around it indicated that the hallway itself might be intact. {Looks good to me… let's go see.}

Grunt nodded and took two steps away to let Miranda fire up her small thrusters without causing damage to his equipment. She gave him a nod and disabled her maglocks, diverting the propulsion control into the movement sensors in her battle gloves instead of having the VI handle navigation. She pushed herself into the chasm, using her left fingers to control the power of her five thrusters, and the remaining four axes of her left wrist and the 360-degree motion of her right hand to orient herself. Ignoring the slight flutter in her stomach—she couldn't actually fall anywhere, after all—she carefully flew up to the hallway, and then reoriented her direction and altitude so that she could get herself safely into the corridor itself.

The solidity of the ground underneath her feet was in question, but she was glad for it nevertheless. She reactivated her maglocks, and took a few steps forward to give Grunt space… though not quite enough, the krogan bumping lightly right into her before he could fully decelerate.

{Sorry.}

{It's okay,} Miranda said distractedly as she scanned the hallway before them. She had already managed to feel a brief surge of elation that it had made it almost untouched by the destruction just behind them before she noticed that the door a few meters down was open a few centimeters… _the_ door. Swearing to herself, she ungracefully dashed the short distance, and jammed her fingers in the hole to pull the door open. Grunt spared her from having to use her biotics when she could barely budge it… the krogan's massive hand grabbed the edge just above hers, and seemingly effortlessly crushed the door into its sheath on the other side as he pulled on it.

They both stood there for a moment, staring at the completely empty lab.

{Guess I'll call Garrus up, then,} Grunt rumbled pleasedly.


	72. Chapter 71

{You think the children are alive?} Liara asked, wondering how her father could be so _calm_. She herself was full of dread and sorrow despite the comforting embrace of her bondmate's consciousness, and she had not even known Lilani. She could only begin to imagine what the loss might have felt like, having lost both her mother… and Shepard. Her father's assertion did make sense, in a way—most likely someone would have had to have reported that there was a reason to suspect Lilani was… gone, rather than simply missing. It could have been anyone starting with her neighbors or even rescue squads, but she reopened the listings and had the VI look for any other members of the Napassa family just in case she had somehow missed them earlier.

{Yeah, they gotta be,} Aethyta huffed in response. She also sounded out of breath—probably already on her way to a shuttle to make the trip to the _Tiber_. {It's unlikely that anybody could've said that she was gone without assuming the kids were too, unless they knew they weren't!}

{Slow down,} Shepard said, but not unkindly. {You're not making much sense,} she added genuinely confused, looking up at Liara and addressing her as much as Aethyta. {You're thinking someone's found the kids, and either they said something or something about the circumstances made the rescuers believe that their mother was… had suffered an ill fate? And for some reason the kids just aren't on the survivor or injured lists?}

Liara shook her head at Shepard. The VI still had not found any reference to the children. {It is possible that those lists are updating later. Casualty lists have been more timely from what I have seen,} she explained to her bondmate out of habit… Shepard had some ability to navigate her thoughts even when Liara did not explicitly direct them at her, but she was not very surefooted about it yet and Liara did not wish to allow this situation to remain ambiguous. {Or perhaps they are going through medical check-ups or further biometric identification before being listed. They have pictures and so on attached to the listings, do you remember? They are safe and cared for, and a few hours' delay in getting the listing updated would usually not be such a big problem.}

{I just… I just need to know, I have to find them,} Aethyta said gruffly, her voice now tighter. {Lilani's report came from the Armali evac center… fuck, I'll sit as long as it takes for you to get some fucking QEC time through the fleets. I've pulled all the strings I can except I can't get a hold of Lidanya, and if you can too—both of you, please, Shepard?—maybe I can get just five minutes or something—}

{Yeah, of course, I…} Shepard said quickly, shooting a questioning glance at Liara even as she felt the thought form in the human's mind through the meld. _Tell her?_

It was a hard choice, Liara realized, already thinking about the exact same thing that caused Shepard's concern… if she lied about the QEC now, perhaps feigned to only be able to obtain limited access through the fleet channels, she would make it much harder to keep her stories straight in the future—in addition to having to cut off any possible connection to the children prematurely and unnecessarily to keep up the ruse. She was not sure she could have done it if it came to that, to her father or to the children, innocent in all this. On the other hand, she could not simply tell even her father that she was the Shadow Broker, assuming she did not already know… it was not that she did not trust Aethyta, as strange as that felt, but even a single additional reliable person with the information increased their risk tenfold, and this was not a situation that absolutely required revealing the information. Perhaps such a day would come, but she would protect those around her from the intrigue until it did.

That only left one option. She knew Shepard would go along without questioning her, but cast a meaningful glance at her _silla_ anyway, trying to very clearly form the idea in her head about how they had supposedly secured access to the _Normandy_, detailed enough to handle follow-up questions in case there were any.

Shepard nodded even as she continued her intentionally trailed-off thought. {…Actually, we could try and see if the _Normandy_ connection works now, couldn't we?} she pretended to ask to Liara, very convincingly in the asari's opinion.

{That is a good idea, we should check!} Liara said with genuine enthusiasm, even if the reason for it was slightly different than what she made it out to be. {The repair and technical personnel working on the _Normandy_ think they have been able to bring at least one of its QECs back online.} she explained for the benefit of her father and Hannah, trying carefully not to ruin their ruse with over-embellishment. She was fairly certain that neither of the parents was overly familiar with the subtler technical details of how the QECs worked—which might have caused them to be suspicious—nor interested in pressing the matter further to ferret out any inconsistencies in their story. {They have not tested them yet, as far as I know, but we could perhaps see if we can establish a connection through one of them.}

{I probably don't need to mention it, but please keep this news to yourself,} Shepard added, throwing Hannah a glance—to which the woman nodded—for good measure.

{Okay, but try the official channels too in case this doesn't work,} Aethyta said, sounding worrisomely calm again… as much as Liara disliked hearing the ache in her father's voice, this was almost worse.

{Of course, Father,} Liara agreed gladly. The sorrow that she had forgotten for a moment when this problem requiring a solution had presented itself re-emerged… this time along with the dreadful thought that _she_ could do this for her family with all the privileges and access she had, but millions or _billions_ of others could not. It did not bear thinking about, not if she meant to remain functional. There was so much death and loss that it would crush a spirit if anyone could truly understand the scale. Shepard felt her distress, and the woman's gentle strokes along Liara's thigh and the equally gentle welling of love she felt comforted her, then, pushed away the worst of her dread. _I was to be the caretaker, not you…_ she thought and gave Shepard a sad smile.

Shepard didn't answer but for the small bit of bemused concern coloring her emotions when she reached up to cup Liara's cheek, the hard skin of the pad of her thumb lightly running over her scar. {We'll get through to them, Aethyta, don't worry. Where are you?} she asked out loud.

{I was going— nevermind,} Aethyta replied, changing her approach mid-sentence. {I'll be there in about a half hour. Same cabin still, right?}

{Yes, Father,} Liara said quickly, and gently squeezed Shepard's hand before lowering it and slightly unsteadily pushing herself off her seat. Even with the ability to connect directly by using Feron's ship as a link, it might still take a while to get through to the right place—_Goddess, I do not know what time it is in Armali_, she realized with a start. She had drifted so apart from her home that she no longer intuitively remembered the Thessian cycle. {We will stay on here with you—}

{Don't bother,} her father cut her off. {It's a waste of time you can use on talking to the people that matter, I'll be there soon enough,} she said gruffly, not even entertaining the possibility. {I'll try to get a hold of Lidanya again. The channel's open, talk to me only if something important comes up,} she instructed, and switched off before Liara could reply.

{Very we—} Liara started, shaking her head when she realized Aethyta had already gone.

Hannah had stood up, too, following her and Shepard's example. "What is it?" she asked, brow furrowed with concern—the expression so much like Shepard's that it gave Liara an undefinable sense of joy to witness even in this grave time.

There was something else in that look, too, but Liara could not quite put together what it reflected. "I will attempt to contact the Thessian authorities in order to learn the fate of… of my nieces," she said, tasting the strange word even as she let the meld be replaced by Shepard's physical embrace. "I am terribly sorry, Hannah, I had no wish to trouble you," she added, disentangling from the hug but Shepard's arm still around her waist. "There is no need for you to come—"

"I really hope you're joking, child," Hannah said, rounding the table in turn and placing her arm around Liara's shoulders. "Whatever help I can be…"

Liara smiled but could say nothing for her surprise, and just let herself be steered toward the doorway by the two women at her side while she tried to think of the best strategy for getting through to the refugee center.

* * *

The inevitable sense of loss from the meld fading had come despite the lighter link they had kept up the entire way back up to the room. Shepard had been quite concerned about her bondmate's reaction to the news, but it seemed that Liara's earlier detachment had protected her somewhat… the sadness over the news was more abstract, whereas the concern for Aethyta was very tangible. The turmoil in her mind was all too clear, resurfacing in gaps of the… of the _shape_ of Liara's mind when she was preoccupied with a problem. Shepard could recognize the pattern of thoughts like touching a box in the dark and knowing it for a box but not seeing the label. She could have pushed further, but she had been happy to let Liara think… she'd involve Shepard when she could use the help.

Liara had dashed off to her desk the moment the three of them walked into the room—which, thankfully, Liara had insisted they clean up before leaving that morning—with a final stronger image through the meld to try to distract Hannah for the few moments that it would take for her to establish the connection to Feron and get the VI to route traffic through there to Thessia. If they were in luck, Feron would be in Xe Cha or another relay system, perhaps even Athena itself… otherwise the signal delay as it traveled through the buoys toward the relay could be anywhere from a few minutes to hours in the worst case.

"Mom, could you get me a biohaz bag and a glass of water? The doc says everything's looking okay, but I need to replace my ampoules and patches, and take another set of gastro cams…" Shepard asked as she checked the medical correspondence through her omni, surreptitiously steering her mother over to the bed rather than Liara's corner. Receiving an affirmative nod, she pulled a chair and set it smack in the middle of the narrow corridor bed and the wall before sitting down on the bed herself, hopefully blocking the way in a non-obvious manner.

"Of course, sweetie," Hannah said with a furtive smile, and a glance over at Liara—the asari already hunched over one HI or another, Shepard saw from the corner of her eye.

"She's okay," Shepard said reassuringly. "And I don't want to get in the way when she's working. I don't understand a quarter of what she does."

"Alright," Hannah replied with a small chuckle. "Bags in here, too?" she asked when she entered the bathroom for the water. "Ah, yes, here…"

Shepard quickly double-checked that the medical report was in fact showing everything okay, and approved the update to the treatment parameters that her omni operated under. She reached over to the top of the bed and stuck her hand under the small dispenser embedded into the wall. A scan line ran across her palm, and a few moments later the device deposited three small packages into her cupped hand. She sat up, idly reading the labels on the packages until her mother's shadow fell on her.

"Bag first?" Hannah inquired, holding the small, puncture-proof sheath open in front of her. "I always hated those things…"

"Yeah," Shepard said and lifted her arm up with a grimace. She punched the command into the omni, and watched with macabre curiosity as the small scar on the inside of her wrist split open and widened enough for the VI shunt to turn upright, pushing the spent ampoule through the slit. She quickly rubbed her fingers on the antimicrobial patch on the bedside, and plucked the small vial out and dropped it into the bag before taking her new cocktail ampoule and pushing it into the shunt. Another command and grimace, and the contraption withdrew within her skin, a small amount of omni-gel resealing the skin after.

"Good thing you only have that one vial," Hannah said sympathetically.

"No kidding, Chakwas once made me use four at the same time—"

"Eugh, I don't think this is a story I want to hear."

Shepard gave a small smile at the exaggerated face her mother was making, and tore open the pack of three small dermal patches. "Can you…?"

"Sure. Just in a row?"

Shepard nodded, and pulled up her sleeve so that her mother could deposit the three in a neat little row along the curve of her deltoid. "Thanks," she said while turning her attention to the last foil containing the second small camera she needed to swallow. Huffing quietly, she tossed it back and emptied her glass.

"What happened yesterday, sweetheart?" her mother asked quietly, sitting down next to her on the edge of the bed. "And don't tell me it's nothing. Bajic knew about it. That's not nothing."

"Ah…" Shepard started, rubbing her neck uncomfortably. There was no weaseling out of this… at least her mother didn't seem beside herself. "I wasn't on PTSD meds… the docs misjudged that I didn't need them. So when the alarm about the Keepers went out yesterday, it triggered an episode."

"An _episode_? How serious was this, exactly?"

"It was… bad. Like, full-blown hallucinations and complete detachment from reality psychosis bad," Shepard said hesitantly. …And now her mother _was_ beside herself, the nervous clench of her jaw and the tiniest tremble of her chin belying her composure. "It's okay now, don't worry," she continued, lightly squeezing her mother's hand on the bed.

"How can you say it's okay?" Hannah demanded, quite loudly before she moderated her voice. "The PTSD meds can't handle anything near that…"

"No, they can't, but Liara can," Shepard said confidently, eyes intently on her mother's. "Miranda says the meds will delay the onset enough that I can tell when it starts happening, and that gives enough time for Liara to start helping. Or for me to take other measures if she's not there right then."

"I don't understand how that can work," Hannah said, still very nervously. "She can just make it all go away?"

"Well… in short, yeah," Shepard said, venturing a small smile. "It's… her presence… like, when we are together, melded, it's like I'm home, where I belong. Just that calmed me yesterday. And then she can sort of… she knows what my mind is supposed to look like. Does that make sense? She knows what it's supposed to be like, so she can see where it isn't and then help me with those things. I'm sorry… it's really hard to explain," she said lamely, hoping that her mother could just take her word for it.

Hannah still looked a little dubious, but did give her a small if uncertain smile. "You're _sure_ it'll work?"

Shepard nodded. "She did it yesterday. After crawling through like a mile of vents to get to me," she added proudly, and her mother couldn't seem to help but smile back.

"Alright, baby," she said, turning her hand over to squeeze Shepard's. She glanced over at the asari, now quietly arguing with someone over the comm. "She's the only one I would entrust you to."

* * *

**A/N: I'm really sorry about the delay. Next chapter should be tomorrow.**


	73. Chapter 72

{Do you have any idea what time it is?} the asari in charge of the Armali Refugee Center—a maiden, to Liara's surprise—demanded, bleary eyes trying to focus on the image of her interlocutor.

{No, I'm sorry, I do not,} Liara answered truthfully. She tried to keep her voice amicable without sounding sarcastic or condescending. {It _looks_ like early morning, perhaps?} she ventured, nodding her head toward the dusky landscape in the window visible just behind the asari's back. {Whatever the time, I am very sorry to trouble you directly, Doctor… Neruna, was it?}

The doctor nodded, looking nonplussed. {It's barely past dawn,} she responded, gaining steam again. {I don't know who you think you are, but—}

Liara studiously ignored the discussion Shepard and Hannah were having behind her, and leaned in a bit closer to the camera, voice lowered into a hush. {I need not think anything, Doctor,} she said evenly. {It is you who should think… I am calling you directly on your private account, and I am calling you from Sol. This should be enough for you to understand the seriousness of this request, and how serious it is considered by others,} she continued, hating herself for having to assert her privilege. She also knew it to be foolish to do so even as she was saying it, but some of her father's urgency must have leached into her, too. She had already forced her way through three different people—_important_ people—to get to the doctor, seething all the while about the time it was taking her… and then with anger at herself, for daring to be upset about mere _minutes_ spent on something others couldn't dream of achieving. {Please.}

{I…} Neruna started, her clear displeasure first transformed into something like fear as she understood what Liara was saying, or possibly recognized her… and then seemed mollified by the softness of Liara's plea, softness that had taken her by surprise herself. The doctor frowned, and rubbed the bridge of her nose, chin leaning on her thumb as she seemed to consider the issue.

The asari looked into Liara's eyes a few times, but did not keep the contact, allowing Liara to clandestinely observe the rest of the room. She did not notice anything much out of the ordinary—it was clearly a doctor's office, but with days worth of hastily gathered and processed data pads and terminal littering the space that had all the signs of being meticulously maintained at all other times. There was a blanket visible on the sofa, in the very corner of the image, making Liara feel even guiltier about having likely woken the disheveled-looking doctor… It was not surprising that they would have been enormously busy trying to deal with the situation, especially if they were taking in people from as far away as Paura—which is where her father had indicated the family had lived—more than seven hundred kilometers away on the coast of the Purple Sea.

She felt very isolated from the destruction of the war in that moment, the machine that was the fleets buffering away nearly all of the confusion and disarray… though the losses had been catastrophic for the militaries, too, it was still something they had trained all their lives for. They knew how to handle it, and they had. On the ground, with the demolished infrastructure and most professional rescue workers gone with the militaries or otherwise lost in the first days of the attacks… she was astonished that there was _anything_ resembling organization, but there was. Even the Fora were becoming more active again.

The doctor finally broke the silence that had felt like minutes by lifting her head and laying her clasped hands on the desk before her. {Very well, Dr. T'Soni,} she said, confirming Liara's guess, {I assume you need somebody found, am I correct?}

{Yes, Dr. Neruna,} Liara replied, trying to allow the gratefulness she felt to be heard as well. {I have forwarded you all the details I have on two children who I believe… who I _hope_ to be located in your facility.}

{This isn't really a facility, Dr. T'Soni,} Neruna replied, the exasperation she must have felt for having to explain how the refugee centers worked hidden fairly well under a kinder tone. {We can barely process everyone here… they're actually sent to various satellite centers, and in many cases their data comes from there in the first place. _However_,} she added quickly, {most of the children have been brought to another facility here in Armali for easier care. And, in any case, we should have their current location if they've been through here,} she said, turning to a data pad that Liara assumed to have received the files she had sent. {They lived in the surrounding area, I assume?}

{No,} Liara replied, shaking her head sharply. {They lived in Paura, but I received… I… their mother was included in your latest listing update as Presumed Dead. The children, my nieces, were not, so…}

{I see,} Neruna said with a distracted nod, fingers clumsily running over her omni. {My condolences on your sister… please give me a moment. Unfortunately we have had to split our listing updates recently with the rescue efforts redoubling. With all the data that is required to be uploaded for each person, we are going over our batch quotas. It's been a ni— Ah! Here,} she exclaimed, expression brightening slightly… Liara had to assume that happy news had likely not been in abundance of late, so being able to deliver them to even an impertinent demand seemed to lift her spirits. {DNA hash match for both children, and looks like the rest of the data confirms. Aaaand…} she continued, drawing the word out as she leaned in to view another display, {they're both at the university. That's where children are being held, like I said. Minor injuries and dehydration.}

Liara was surprised by the ache she felt at the mention of minor injuries—Goddess, it could be anything that did not require surgery, including broken bones! She shook away the vivid images of pain and fear of a child, of small arms and legs broken or cut… kneading her knuckles painfully, she tried to smile at the doctor. {Thank you, that is wonderful news! I would like to speak with them, if possible… could you arrange a contact at that facility?}

Neruna said nothing for a moment, her expression conflicted—which Liara could understand very well. Limited resources, and already having given her special treatment… {I'm not sure how easy that will be—} she started uncertainly.

{You do not need to worry about the transfer quotas or anything like that. I have my own transmission system in case you did not notice it in the channel data,} Liara said quickly, just as she saw an opportunity to actually repay the kindness with something other than useless words of appreciation. {In fact, you have already been most helpful. If it helps _you_, I can give you the use of this bandwidth for at least the day whether or not you are able to help me further. That should give you enough time to upload the data you like, perhaps even download manufacturing licenses and whatever information you require. It is not much, I know, but—}

{Honestly, that would be _immensely_ helpful to us,} Neruna said, excitement apparent through disbelieving apprehension. The asari sat up straighter, and leaned back on her chair.

{Good, the details are in the data, and I will reallocate it for you as soon as I no longer have need of it myself,} Liara said with a small smile. {But please, if you are able…}

{Yes, yes… I can hardly say no, can I?} Neruna replied with a smirk, but the edge was missing from her sarcasm. {I will connect you to the administration at the university, and tell them to locate the girls. However,} she warned, {if they're asleep or something like that, I'm sure you understand that they'll just tell you to try to contact them again later.}

{I understand,} Liara said, and emphasized with a sharp nod. {Thank you, Dr. Neruna.}

{Goodbye, Dr. T'Soni,} the asari said.

The image and sound flicked off, and the channel status data became visible instead. Liara verified that it showed her in queue and not disconnected, and re-engaged the channel activity alert to patch back into her aurals as soon as it reactivated. She swung her chair around to Shepard and Hannah to tell them the good news, and was surprised to see her father already there. She had not realized she had been so engaged in the conversation that she had not noticed the door opening. All three dropped the conversation they had been engaged in and looked back at Liara expectantly, worriedly. Only Shepard visibly relaxed when she saw Liara, able as the woman was to read her to see that she was less distraught now.

"Well?" Aethyta asked sternly when Liara did not immediately say anything.

Liara sprang up and walked toward the three before answering—not to prolong their anxiety, but because her father's expression quite worried her. "They have both of the girls at the Armali University center," she said simply when she got closer, emphasizing the positivity of the news with a small smile. She did not mention the minor injuries to spare them the visceral discomfort she herself felt thinking about it.

"Thank fuck," both her father and Shepard said in the same breath.

Liara frowned disapprovingly. "They are seeing whether the girls are awake and able to be summoned so that we can speak to them now," she added, and pulled her father close when she was near enough, encircling the matriarch's listless shoulders with her arms and laying her cheek against Aethyta's neck. "I am so sorry, Father," she murmured quietly.

Aethyta said nothing, but after a moment's hesitation she reciprocated the embrace, her hands lightly gripping Liara's upper arms. "Thanks," she muttered in response before drawing back.

"Are you sure you are alright?" Liara asked worriedly. Her father seemed almost more in shock than anything else, and it would not be a good thing in the long run. "Is there anything I can—"

"I'm fine," Aethyta cut her off gruffly, looking away into the corner. "Emotion was never my strong suit, kiddo. All of yours is from Nezzy."

Liara's heart fell at the words, knowing them for falsehood. She could see the pain as clear as day even if she had not known the ferocity with which her father had engaged in trying to locate the children—how vigilantly she had protected Liara herself. Liara found no words, however, her body frozen in place despite desperately wanting to help somehow, even with just her embrace if she could do no more. At the same time she was conflicted, unsure whether it would just make things worse for her father—

"Oh, Thee…" Hannah said, lifting the burden of choice from Liara's shoulders by seizing her father by hers, and almost forcibly turning the matriarch around and closing her arms around her.

Liara saw her father's breath became shallow and jagged as she leaned against the smaller human woman who alone could understand, Liara realized even as she reflexively sought out Shepard, the disquiet in her stilling only when her bondmate shifted close enough for Liara to clasp her hand.

{Dr. T'Soni?} a voice asked after an indeterminate time, wrenching Liara from the sorrow that she had not wanted to revisit. {Are you there?}

{Yes,} Liara said, letting go of Shepard's hand and turning to walk back toward the table. {Did Dr. Neruna ex—}

{She did,} the tired voice in the other end said. As Liara got back to the terminal, she saw another maiden in a doctor's tunic, in a room not unlike the one Dr. Neruna had occupied. {I can only give you a few minutes… she needs to have breakfast before the rest of today's program.}

Despite having expected it, Liara was unable to parse the doctor's statement until the asari moved to the side, revealing the small shape behind her. The girl took a hesitant step forward, but then merely stared into the camera, looking so profoundly sad that it broke Liara's heart. She gestured at her father behind her back, not knowing what she could say. Hearing the steps behind her, she simply enlarged the projection to more or less life-size, and increased the capture area so that hopefully more of them could be seen at the other end, too.

"Uska!" her father shouted painfully loud as she came to a halt next to Liara, barely avoiding barreling through the resized picture and into the desk.

If the girl's disconsolate face had shattered Liara's heart into a million pieces, it was the smile of recognition that brightened the child's face that made all of the shards glow with warmth. "Gramma!" Uska squealed back, and threw her arms up before remembering that her grandmother wasn't actually physically there. Her smile faltered only a little, and she hugged herself with her tiny arms, rocking from side to side.

Liara turned to her father only to see her similarly cross her arms over her chest, sharing the virtual embrace with a small smile. "Hi, kiddo. You're not hurt, are you?" she asked hoarsely as she let her hands fall back to her side.

Uska pursed her lips tightly together and shook her head. "I hurt my arm but it's okay now, Gramma," she said confidently, lifting both arms up again to show them.

"Where's your sister, Uska? Is she sleeping?" Aethyta asked.

"Yeah, she sleeps a lot," Uska replied with a small nod. "And it's pretty early too."

Liara watched the girl from the side, not wanting to crowd her… she must have seen entirely too many strange people already. Shepard had walked up to Liara, too, careful to stay out of the view. The woman was hugging her from behind, both her and Liara's own arms joined over Liara's stomach, and the familiar soft point of her chin resting on Liara's shoulder.

"Is your sister alright too?"

"Yeah, except I didn't have enough bottles for her because I only had one and there wasn't a lot of powder in the stores so the doctor had to give her a little extra water first. But not anymore today, and they put her back in the diaper," the girl explained. "Who are those people?" she asked in the same breath, pointing over where she must have seen Liara.

"Would you like to meet them?" Aethyta asked, likely trying to ensure that they would not frighten Uska.

The girl simply nodded.

Liara straightened up a little, and tried to smile more broadly when her father gestured for the camera to turn so that she and Shepard were in the picture, too. "This is your aunt Liara," she said, lightly patting Liara's shoulder.

"I know you," Uska said, her expression turning to intense concentration before brightening again. "You are Doctor Liara T'Soni, Archaeologist and Prothean Researcher Who Became a Hero of the Citadel!" the girl said, pronouncing the words as though she was reciting a news vid headline.

"Yes," Liara said, struggling to keep her smile from turning into laughter. "I suppose I am. You may call me Liara, however."

The child nodded seriously, and turned her eyes at Shepard. "Who are you? You're a youman. Are you Commander Shepard? Because that is who was her girlfriend and youman."

"I am," Shepard said, and Liara could feel her grinning against the side of her neck. "I'm Shepard. Nice to meet you, Uska."

Uska nodded again, but let her head hang as she looked at the floor for a few moments.

"Uska?" Aethyta asked carefully.

The girl raised her gaze, her teary eyes looking straight at Aethyta as though she needed to say something but could not quite find the words, jaws tightly clenched together until she finally spoke. "Mommy died, Gramma."

"I know, baby," Aethyta said, voice breaking before she swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Everybody died."


End file.
